Image courtesy of Trattoria L’Incontro (@trattoria_lincontro) Instagram.

Trattoria L’Incontro’s owner Rocco Sacramone’s mission has been to make his restaurant a place where you receive a dining experience. When you are limited to only offering take-out, it becomes an additional challenge of trying to reinvent yourself. With take-out, you can’t express yourself on the plate. There are also adjustments of what you can offer on the menu, taking into consideration foods that can travel well, and of course adjusting menu items to new economic situations. 

Prices of food have reached insane inflation, and there is also extreme scarcity of what is available. Sacramone says that he tries to be considerate of this scarcity and consumes less as to make another family happy. He feels that the only way to truly overcome this crisis is by being conscious of each other and working together. However even by changing the menu, he is intent on keeping the quality of his food, putting passion and pride into what he offers to his customers.

Chef Rocco says he loves what he does but he understands how hard it is to stay motivated during these times. He tries to keep his team motivated by changing up menu items, as to avoid a mundane “day in the office”, and above all tries to keep positive morale in the restaurant. He says, “Every problem has a solution, and if there is no solution, there is no problem.” These are unprecedented times, and while businesses can always rebuild, the real “problems” are humanitarian, and he hopes that these issues don’t take real psychological tolls on people. 

Image via Trattoria L’Incontro (@trattoria_lincontro) Instagram.

You can only keep people locked up for so long, and now especially as the weather gets nicer, people want to be out and working again. As the city begins to open up, Sacramone is online researching and staying up to date with all the protocols. The staff already has adapted to wearing masks, gloves, and avoiding each other as much as possible. Once fully opened, social distancing is to be expected. They will likely have to remove many of the tables in the restaurant and therefore, take-out will also remain an option at Trattoria L’Incontro.

“Yesterday is the past – there’s nothing you can do to fix it, today is your gift, and tomorrow is a mystery. So this is how we go about living our lives.” Sacramone sees this as the end of the road for COVID19, in a positive way, and feels that we are currently in a recovery stage. Astoria is a great community to be a part of and there has been tons of support from the locals. His best advice would definitely be continuing to support. Our community organizations have helped tremendously and not only giving back in donating to hospitals and our first responders, but also helping our local businesses.