Contributors

about Justin Levy, Editor in Chief
Justin began his career in the restaurant industry at the age of 15 when he began cleaning tables at Paisano’s Restaurant in Southampton, MA. He quickly moved through the ranks and learned every aspect of the restaurant under the mentorship of owner and successful restaurateur Constantine Sierros.

After moving away to college, Justin left the restaurant business while focusing on his studies and involvement with various philanthropic ventures. Following college, he became back involved with the restaurant industry working with Chili’s in Simsbury, CT. Justin also took on website development for Joe and began helping his friend learn how to market the restaurant to help it become as successful as both had envisioned.

Justin now focuses on rapidly exposing Caminito through organizations, affiliates, networking opportunities and events. Levy has taken the quality that Gionfriddo has created and now is introducing the Northeast to it.

Justin is also General Manager of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency as well home to the Inbound Marketing Summit events, Inbound Marketing Bootcamps and a host of other educational events. In this role Justin helps businesses navigate the unknown seas of new media marketing including how to use social media tools, blogs, community platforms, and listening tools to drive business value. If you’d like more information about how Justin can help your business, please contact him.

Justin regularly speaks to groups and at events about his successes in driving revenue using new media with his steakhouse. You can find Justin at many different social media, marketing and tech events, conferences and meetups. If you’re interested in having Justin speak at your next event, please check out his Speaking page.

about Joseph M. Gionfriddo, Associate Editor
Joe has always felt at home in front of the grill. He started his career in the kitchen of Roberto’s in Northampton, MA at the age of 15. Joe quickly climbed the ranks and stayed there through his first year of college. He learned all aspects of the Roberto’s kitchen including pizza making, short order and line cooking. Through this time, Joe managed to hire his own hit squad of friends to assist him in the kitchen.

After a family move, Joe spent a summer as the head chef at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp Resort. While this isn’t considered the pinnacle of Joe’s cooking experiences, it did aid in his mastery of grilling techniques which he uses every day in the kitchen at Caminito.

A year after Yogi Bear’s, he began working at the now-defunct Harvest Valley Restaurant. While there Joe trained under MaryAnn Salcedo from Fox’s hit series “Hell’s Kitchen“. Salcedo is a classicly trained French chef and had the honor of training under celebrity-chef Gordon Ramsey. Salcedo helped to push Joe’s skill to that of an executive chef.

From there, Joe joined the Caminito staff, taking over as the executive chef and eventually buying out the previous owner in November 2006. Since buying the restaurant, he has continued building a menu comprised of hand-cut choice steaks paired with top-shelf wines including Caminito’s specialty, Malbec wines. Joe continues to push the traditional steakhouse to another level by influencing his selections with hints of Argentine flavor.

about Justin Rasmussen, Contributor

Justin helps companies find new strategies to connect and interact with their customers, develop products and integrations, business development, research and development, and strategic planning and execution. Justin has 8 years experience with service technology development and deployment, and 4 years experience with combined technology and entertainment-based products and services.

Justin writes articles and blogs on business, technology, entertainment and how they interact together in today’s marketplace at [thisisjustin.com] and [coffeehouseideas.com].

Justin is also an avid coffee connoisseur and enjoys pairing coffee with all types of food.

about Jessica Randazza, Contributor

Growing up Italian and the daughter of an executive chef in the south, it was evitable that the culinary arts would become Jessica’s passion. Jessica believes that food as a way to bring friends and family together, and as a key ingredient in building jessicarandazza great relationships.

While Jessica enjoys hostessing and entertaining guests, her vegetarian diet makes cooking for her carnivorous friends an exciting challenge and a reason to stay creative in the kitchen.

In 2007, Jessica made the trek to Seattle to become a public relations and social media strategist for a global public relations agency with an extensive focus in food and beverage. While living in the Pacific Northwest, Jessica’s has sought out like-minded individuals to build a culinary community where foodies (and brands) can share food tips and recipes through emerging technologies in real-time to change the way we think about and prepare food.

She’s also is co-founder of ColdPavement, a Seattle networking group that facilitates meeting and talking with people in the communications field.

A graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, shoe enthusiast, struggling seamstress and yogini.

Jessica has a cooking confession: She believes that salsa goes with everything. Whether it’s an omelet in the morning, a salad for lunch, or a veggie burger for dinner (she’s even been known to eat it right out of the jar as a snack) it is always a welcome condiment.

You can connect with Jessica on Twitter: @jessicarandazza

about Melissa DelGaudio, Contributor

Melissa_casual Melissa loves food. Plain and simple. She enjoys eating it (make no mistake about that), but is passionate about preparing delicious fare for her loved ones. She began experimenting with cooking when she was still a little girl, when her mom went back to work full-time. It didn’t take long before she took over the culinary duties in her home altogether!

While Melissa loves a challenge and enjoys preparing elaborate, WOW! meals for her family and friends, she most enjoys preparing “comfort foods”, things that warm all parts of you — not just your belly. Favorites include a broad spectrum of soups and stews, “Low Country” Southern cuisine (her mom was raised in the deep South and can make some mean shrimp & grits), and classics like real, homemade meatballs & spaghetti or Lasagna Bolognese.

When she’s not whipping up a frenzy in her kitchen, Melissa is the principal of Honeybee Consulting, a one-woman copywriting & public relations firm based in picturesque Shepherdstown, West Virginia, whose core passions lie with great writing. Melissa’s clients lie predominantly in the Real Estate space, though they extend to such wide-reaching industries as video game technology, entertainment, and eco-friendly transportation.

A graduate of The University of Maryland at College Park (GO TERPS!), Melissa is an avid traveler, amateur oenophile, lover of great books, and, according to her young children, a complete goofball.

You can often find Melissa on Twitter, where’s she’s known as “startabuzz”. Drop in and say HI!

about Megan Sansoucy Hinds

For a long time now, I have been immersed in the world of restaurants, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (well, almost every minute).

It all began at the tender age of 14, when I entered into the service industry at a mom and pop’s home-made ice cream shop in Southern Maine called Dairy Joy (still the best ice creams that I have ever tasted). The couple that own Dairy Joy, Mary and Richard Guignard, left a very deep impression on me of what great service really means. Mr. Guignard showed the value of being thorough and exact all the time in order to put out a consistent, well-made product. Mrs. Guignard is the epitome of the phrase “service with a smile.” In addition to being whip smart, she understood the value of being genuine and honest with her guests, which transposed into a style of service that was warm, caring, and ultimately offered a completely satisfying experience for her patrons. I have always attempted to emulate her in my own style of service, as well as in life.

I got my first job as a server when I was eighteen at The Inn at Goose Rocks. This is a quaint little family-run inn and restaurant in Goose Rocks, Maine right on the beach. When I went away to college at UMass, I started working at Roberto’s Pizza in Northampton with Joe Gionfriddo. I then moved to the, as Joe says, “now defunct Harvest Valley.” This was the first time I started to really appreciate the complexity of food and wine. We were privileged to work with and learn from Mary Ann Salcedo, the executive chef at Harvest Valley.

The refinement of my restaurant education continued when my husband and I moved to Greenwich, CT where I worked at Polpo Restaurant for five years. This Italian restaurant is very much like an old-school Frank Sinatra hang-out- great food, great service, great atmosphere. We catered to the upper echelon of Greenwich society, which was always entertaining. When we moved back up to Red Sox country (thank God), I started working at The Bedford Village Inn in Bedford, NH. I had been working in the fine dining room for about six months when I was approached by Jon Carnevale (the only certified sommelier in the state of New Hampshire and owner of the Bedford Village Inn) to help open and work in the new wine bar and restaurant called Corks. I agreed and began more seriously studying about wine and how to pair it with food. Thanks in large part to Jon, my education in wine is ever expanding, as well as my interest in the subject.

My hope is that through this blog, I will be able to share my love of food and wine with people who love it as much as I do.