As Fate Would Have It
Something was always cooking in the New York kitchen of Linda and Richard Schweitzer, and someone was always stopping by to eat. Their home was an unofficial restaurant long before the family moved to Greenville and opened Luna Rosa Gelato Café downtown. According to Richard, their “revolving door” kitchen has always been “the place to solve problems... and make problems... and talk loudly!”
After years of imagining it, the family now owns a thriving restaurant that features authentic Italian cuisine and made-from-scratch gelato, dishes both hearty (baked ziti quattro formaggi) and light (“Fancy Nancy” pear salad). Folks without time for a meal stumble upon the café and can hardly resist a scoop of gelato, an Italian version of ice cream with a smoother texture and richer taste.
Along with their daughter Lauren and her husband Jose, Linda and Richard dreamed up the gelateria. Everyone had something to contribute. Richard studied the gelato-making process with a 72-year-old Italian virtuoso who had been making gelato since he was 14. From this master, Richard learned that gelato-making may be more science than art; he began to rely on the scale more than his memory, measuring ingredients with precision to the gram. Back in their home kitchen, Linda was mastering the art of authentic Italian dishes. Lauren and Jose knew how to run a business, and Lauren’s brother Jason was a graphic designer. They were a dream team... all they needed was a location.
They traveled the US in search of the perfect spot, one with a moderate climate and lots of foot traffic. Greenville was an early recommendation, and downtown was abuzz, the culinary scene taking off. Linda and Richard fell hard. In two months, the entire family had moved, ready to open their business in 2007.
With a location secured, the restaurant needed a name. Years before, Linda’s Aunt Rosie had given the young couple $10,000 to open a business. She had since passed away but appeared to Linda in a dream as they were planning the restaurant, balancing on a ledge and raising her arms in the moonlight. According to Italian superstition, this was a sacred visit; Aunt Rosie was approving their project. Linda awoke from her dream with a name: Luna Rosa. It wasn’t until after Jason crafted the logo that the family realized it also bore the initials of its proprietors, Linda and Richard. And confirmation didn’t stop coming. Linda’s lucky number had always been nine, the restaurant’s new address number on Washington Street. Lauren’s choice was validated when she discovered Washington intersects Laurens Road.
Without all these positive omens, start-up difficulties may have been impossible to endure. The whole family now lived and worked together with no back-up plan, and the economy was slumping. Lauren and Jose were expecting their first child and working nonstop. Furthermore, gelato, which contains less fat and less air than ice cream so has a denser texture and flavor, was unfamiliar to most Americans in 2007.
Half the people who walked in the door of Luna Rosa had never even heard of it. They were lured from the streets by beautiful mounds of pink, green, and orange, what the family refers to as “simply better ice cream.”
It would be impossible to say who has worked hardest to make Luna Rosa a success. Five days a week, Richard is at work by 3:30 am. He produces 20-30 pans of gelato daily, and each batch takes around 20 minutes start to finish. Richard swears by imported Italian ingredients and a complicated and expensive hot process, during which ingredients, heated to 185°, break down on a molecular level and bind together, eliminating grainy texture and creating more depth of flavor. He’s not shy about his opinion: They make the best gelato in the United States.
Meanwhile, Linda spends the early hours in the kitchen crafting arduous dishes from family recipes. “I’m not a chef,” she says. “I’m a cook.” Her husband urges her to abandon the more labor- intensive dishes like four-layer lasagna, but Linda insists on cooking the food she loves. The menu is small for quality control and everything is made to order, nothing frozen.
Jose and Lauren take care of everything else: staffing, management, customer service and bookkeeping. Their two children, Mia and Luca, spend countless hours at the restaurant. After school, curly-haired Mia bounces through the door and helps herself to a scoop of gelato, half of which will remain on her chin for the afternoon.
And the family is, in the best way, never satisfied. They recently began using the 15-year-old balsamic vinegar from Palmetto Olive Oil Co. to create unique flavors including blackberry ginger balsamic cream and pear cinnamon honey balsamic. These are wildly popular and sell out within hours.
If you haven’t tried Luna Rosa, you should. But if you stop by, be careful: You may be watched. Richard admits the best part of his day is observing a customer’s first bite. Some days he even counts overheard “wows.” Before long you’ll feel like part of the family. Eventually you might even become like one customer, who—if they have run out of his favorite gelato flavor—begs to sneak into the kitchen and lick the pan. They let him.
