Former BlackRock Manager Builds Pelato Into a Three-City Restaurant Group

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Pelato, the Italian restaurant group founded by former BlackRock real estate associate Anthony Scotto III, now operates in Nashville, Franklin, Tennessee, and Charleston, South Carolina. The 30-year-old’s business employs 300 people and projects serving about 450,000 guests this year.

Scotto left a career in real estate private equity after BlackRock recalled employees to its New York offices. He had been managing a family restaurant venture remotely from Tennessee, where his family had moved during the pandemic, and decided to stay after identifying a struggling property in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood. Pelato opened there in September 2023 with his mother, Theresa, a former insurance broker.

The company has since expanded to Franklin and Charleston. Both locations reached operational break-even in their first month, according to the company’s financial records, which show that none of its three restaurants has had an unprofitable month since stabilizing.

Scotto’s approach draws on his experience sourcing, underwriting, acquiring and selling commercial properties at BlackRock, which oversees more than $10 trillion in assets. He applies that experience to restaurant operations, including treating the dining room as a finite real estate asset. He personally trains Pelato’s hosts to manage table turns and capacity during peak wait times, a front-of-house yield-management strategy he credits with supporting profit margins.

The first Pelato occupied a historic former mop-and-broom factory where five restaurant concepts had failed over the preceding decade. Scotto found the property while surveying the market and learned that its tenant was four months behind on rent. Rather than focus on the building’s history, he assessed its location value and secured the space.

The restaurant’s early service model needed adjustment. It opened with a pandemic-era QR-code ordering system, but Scotto and his mother concluded that the digital interface was alienating diners looking for an authentic Brooklyn-Italian experience. They revised the service, making hundreds of incremental changes to the menu, greeting protocols and dining-room floor flow. Pelato reached operational break-even in its third month.

By January 2024, traditionally a difficult month for retail and dining establishments, demand had surged. The restaurant became a destination for high-profile figures and musicians, including Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson, Sabrina Carpenter, Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton and Billy Joel.

Pelato’s Nashville revenue increased 76% from its first full year to its second, then rose 34% year over year the following year. Management forecasts a further 10% increase for the current fiscal year. Industry data cited in the account indicate that about 60% of independent restaurants fail in their first year and 80% close within five years.

The restaurant business grew out of a family history in New York hospitality. Scotto’s family immigrated from the Italian island of Ischia in 1905, settled in Manhattan’s Little Italy and later moved to Brooklyn. In 1993, the family opened Fresco by Scotto on East 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. It became a power-lunch fixture for media executives, politicians and Wall Street figures.

Scotto worked at Fresco during school breaks, starting as a dishwasher and moving into kitchen preparation. The restaurant was on the same block as BlackRock’s former global headquarters, and the exposure to Midtown’s corporate landscape helped shape his interest in commercial real estate and finance. At 18, he earned a real estate license while cold-calling prospective clients.

He chose Northeastern University for its cooperative education program. The university did not have an established path into BlackRock’s real estate investment team, so Scotto spent a year networking and arranging an independent co-op placement. That effort led to two consecutive internships and a full-time offer after graduation. He eventually became an associate and assistant portfolio manager for one of the firm’s flagship real estate private-equity funds.

The family’s business plans changed in 2020, when New York City’s prolonged pandemic lockdowns temporarily closed Fresco by Scotto and halted its primary revenue stream. The family looked to Nashville, then experiencing a commercial real estate and construction boom, where Scotto’s sister was attending university. While continuing his remote portfolio-management work, Scotto organized the logistics for Luogo, the family’s first Nashville venture, an upscale Italian restaurant managed by his father. Scotto negotiated its commercial lease, prepared financial projections and established its legal and accounting frameworks.

The move also reflects a broader migration of Northeastern capital, talent and culinary concepts to fast-growing Southeastern metropolitan areas. For Scotto, the decision to remain in Tennessee turned on the Germantown property and the opportunity to launch Pelato with his mother.

The Scotto family plans to open two locations a year for the next three years. Two lease commitments for 2027 have already been finalized. Scotto’s shift from portfolio manager to operator has meant a seven-day work week with virtually no vacation time, in exchange for direct equity ownership and greater operational autonomy than he had at a global financial institution.

He hopes eventually to visit Ischia with a handwritten family address and reconnect with his ancestral roots. For now, he is focused on underwriting the next commercial lease.