Area Women in Business: Sarah Nasello, Restauranteur

Sarah Nasello
Born: Fargo, ND, 1969
Education: Attended University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska
Business: Sarellos, co-owner
Community Volunteering & Donations: Vice-president, Fargo-Moorhead Opera Company Board of Directors, Trollwood Performing Arts School donor

An unflinching commitment to integrity and excellence in food and service and personal attention to detail has made this restaurant into an unusual and declicious dining experience in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

Sarah Nasello and her husband Tony own and operate Sarellos and just as their business concept was unusual to pursue for this area Sarah's road to business ownership was unusual as well.

Long before opening Sarellos, Sarah found that college was not for her and at her mother's suggestion she left school and joined the crew of a small adventure cruise ship out of San Francisco. She worked as a steward 12 to 14 hours a day cleaning eight staterooms a day and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to customers of the ship. She learned the hospitality profession from the ground floor up while keeping up the hardworking pace on-board.

Sarah moved to another ship to work and then met her husband Tony. They married and continued their work on the ship - he worked in the restaurant and she did office work.

Sarah and her husband eventually moved to the Holland America Ship Line which was one of the few cruise companies that would employ married couples. They spent a total of 10 years on-board ships working in the industry. They became officers, saw all seven continents within three years time, and along the way were able to save much of their earnings to eventually finance the opening of Sarellos. By the time they left the cruise ship industry, Sarah was a cruise director and Tony worked in hospitality management.

They knew for sometime that they wanted to own and operate their own restaurant - one that would feature simple foods and a place where the chef could start with the best product available and enhance it with herbs. Sarah says, "Food is the star of the restaurant." And, adds that they purposely keep the dining area comfortably understated in order for the focus to be on the food that is served.

When Sarah and Tony were ready for some grounding to start a family they decided to make Fargo their permanent home and where their much planned restaurant would be located. They already owned a small house in Fargo in order to have a home to go to when they had time away from the ship. They returned to their home for good and in December of 2000 they opened Sarellos.

It took persistent research and shopping to find a space that they wanted to locate their restaurant in. Also tapping their patience were some naysayers who said that their fine food idea would not be well received in this area. Sarah made the buying offer on the current location space (formerly Peggy's Pantry, Moorhead) when Tony was at sea for three weeks filling in for someone taking a leave. Sarah says, "I became a business person when the offer was accepted."

Sarah and Tony were ready with savings to invest in the business; the City of Moorhead was supportive by providing a grant to remodel the space and a great banker willing to work with them to finance the operation.

The first couple of years the business was open, Tony and Sarah worked fulltime together in the restaurant. At the start they knew the hospitality and the food roles within their dream but not the business end. Sarah has since learned business from experience and great mentoring by their CPA and other financial professionals that they work with. Tony is a trained chef and with his experience in hospitality became the "face" of the restaurant.

Sarah says that now seven years later they are able to step back a bit from the intensity of operating the business and can enjoy it and their 2-1/2-year-old son even more. They have begun to take occasional breaks away since they have a trustworthy staff and are constantly in touch with wonderful professional people and customers who care about their business as much as Sarah and Tony do.

Even so, when in town Sarah or her husband is always at the restaurant. Tony as a trained chef runs the restaurant (the executive chef is from a cruise ship) and Sarah runs the business learning along the way to handle the financial portion of operations.

Sarah pays attention to trends in their industry and what people are looking for locally in a restaurant. She has found that currently people want to know more about wines and cooking and are looking for hands-on experiences in preparing food and learning about wines. To fulfill those desires Sarrellos offers wine training and Tony is teaching several well attended food preparation courses through Moorhead's adult education program.

To keep learning, Sarah reads a lot of restaurateur magazines, subscribes to good web informational sources and continues to learn from their business's CPA. Sarah and Tony are constantly learning as they experience and try different foods. You can find the couple almost continually surrounded by fine food and Sarah mentions that eating out is their passion.

This Shanley high school graduate loved the cruise profession and says that she misses seeing beautiful places around the world. But it makes for a very special addition to our community that Sarah and her partner husband have decided to make Fargo their home and bring far away places to us through the experience of world class dining at Sarellos.

For more information call 218.287.0238 or go to www.sarellos@yahoo.com. Reservations are encouraged.