Mambo Italiano Opens in Irvington’s Competitive Market

From the Hudson Independent

This post is in collaboration with The Hudson Independent. We will be cross-posting some stories in order to expand awareness of other local news sources and improve local news coverage.

The interior of Mambo Italiano in Irvington

By Shana Lieb­man

Irvington — That Fam­ily Feel­ing (the Main Street, Irv­ing­ton sand­wich spot with a mean Reuben) has been re­placed by a new Ital­ian restau­rant, Mambo Ital­iano — opened by two for­mer em­ploy­ees.

Dani Be­rar­ducci, the week­end cook at That Fam­ily Feel­ing, says the idea for Mambo Ital­iano started when the own­ers an­nounced they were mov­ing on to an­other ven­ture. “The place was of­fered to me and my coworker, now busi­ness part­ner, Ana [Rusch], who was man­ag­ing the restau­rant.”

Al­though Be­rar­ducci and Rusch have culi­nary back­grounds — Be­rar­ducci in cater­ing and as a pri­vate chef, Rusch in restau­rants and bak­ing — nei­ther had ever owned a restau­rant. The of­fer, how­ever, was too good to refuse.

Be­cause of their shared Ital­ian her­itage (Be­rar­duc­ci’s fam­ily is from Napoli and Abruzzo, and Rusch’s roots are Si­cil­ian), they de­cided to make the new restau­rant Ital­ian “as au­then­tic as we can make it for Amer­i­can stan­dards,” Be­rar­ducci says. “Mambo” is Be­rar­duc­ci’s nick­name.

Read the rest of this story at the Hudson Independent.

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