Meet Brian Bojanowski of Twisted Italian in Peoria

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Bojanowski.

Brian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The journey began in 2014. At the time, I was in the corporate world working for a fortune 100 company. I had worked there for the past 15 years since I and my wife had relocated from the Chicago area. I had given everything I had to the company and had successfully worked myself into a Vice President of Finance role. Then things changed. I received a message that due to a structure change, my job was moving overseas. I could explore some other opportunities within the company or I was out of a job. I was not as bitter as I did understand the nature of the corporate world. I did though stop and take a good long look at my life. Life was flying by. All I did was work. It was a great job, but it was work. What if I could work doing something I truly enjoyed. Would that not be a better way to go through life I thought? I looked at what I enjoyed doing and where my passions were. I kept coming back to the restaurant business. I had worked as a cook in a Sizzler Steakhouse as a teen.

By far, my most enjoyable job. Loved the pace, occasional chaos, and every day was game day. Additionally, much of our free time seemed to revolve around dining out, cooking in, and watching food shows. This business seemed to be a fit. The challenge is though that everyone I talked to warned of the high failure rates. Nobody thought it was a great idea. Especially, for someone who has not run one before. I am a person who believes that you can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it. This seemed like a real test of that. I felt that I either believed in myself or I did not. I and my wife deliberated heavily on the decision and decided that if we could find the right opportunity, we would make a change and invest in owning a restaurant. While I believed we could succeed, it was the scariest decision we have ever made.

In 2015, we found The Twisted Italian which was for sale. It had a staff in place, a good starter menu was small enough not to intimidate and had a great location in North Peoria near our home. I felt we could work with it. We purchased it and dove right in. I have to say, the first couple of weeks were a complete shock to our systems. We did not have any experience serving tables and initially felt very out of place. I recall on day one going up to a table and asking them how their meal was. They replied, “I’ll let you know when I get it.” I kept thinking to myself “what did I get myself into?” I don’t think I slept that entire first week. I also knew though that we were embarking on a long term challenging endeavor and needed to stay positive.

We stuck with it, worked hard, made several changes, and the business grew. It has not been easy and much we learned the hard way. We have made great progress though and are close to getting it to where we envisioned it being. We have more than doubled our inherited sales, significantly improved our online reviews, and are becoming a household name in the community. I still am almost always working but get great satisfaction in creating dishes and sharing with our incredible customers. Best of all, I get to work with my wife and daughter and hopefully eventually my son.

Has it been a smooth road?
We have had many struggles. Far too many to mention all in this interview. Staffing and repairs come to mind first. We took the restaurant over in mid-June in Arizona. That time of year it is hot. Very hot. About two weeks in, we begin having air conditioning outages. We went through roughly a four week period where we would walk in in the morning to open the restaurant to discover the AC was out, we would scramble to bring in a repair company, they would fix the issue, and then three days later the same thing would happen again. It was like a nightmare groundhog day every three days. Must have happened ten times before we ultimately resolved. We eventually discovered that the unit was operating with numerous parts that were not the right parts for the unit. Also, discovered items such as compressors that should have been replaced were patched. Was very costly and very stressful. We were new to the business, trying to win customers, and had to spend our time turning customers away due to the lack of AC. A rough experience but it prepared us early on to expect the unexpected. Every day you never know what kind of challenge to expect. You just need to keep moving forward!

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Twisted Italian – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
We did not take on this endeavor to do the ordinary. We strive for unique offerings that are loaded with flavor, along with items that we love as well. A couple of items come to mind.

Our signature dish is our King Cut Lasagna. It is a heaping portion of Lasagna that is made to order. Unlike most restaurants which will heat a piece of lasagna from a tray of previously cooked lasagna, every lasagna we make is made to order bottoms up. We also offer a build your own option (i.e. picking your sauce, ingredients, cheeses…) similar to a pizza. I am not aware of any restaurant anywhere doing this.

We are from Chicago. We love Chicago Italian beef. We don’t like driving to Scottsdale to get a decent beef sandwich. Therefore, we started making our own and brought great Chicago Beef to the Northwest Valley. We feel the quality is as good or better than anyone in Arizona and our customers are telling us that as well. Chicago transplants have found us and it is growing fast.

I am half Polish. I grew up making pierogies with my father my entire life. Despite it being an Italian restaurant, we had to offer these. We make them in house by hand and have cheese & onion, spicy cheese, and meatball pierogi (in an attempt to bridge the Italian gap!) as well as an occasional rotating “pierogi of the month.” It surprises many people to find these in an Italian restaurant. I suppose it is a bit Twisted…

Is there a quality or characteristic that has played an outsized role in your success?
We put 100% of our hearts into everything we do. I think that comes through with the way we interact with our customers, prepare our food, and treat our employees.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eattwisted.com
• Phone: 623 537 4000
• Email: thetwisteditalian@gmail.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twisteditalian

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