One chilly Wisconsin evening in 2007, business consultant Ani Poddar walked into the Madison outpost of the Texas-based gelateria chain Paciugo with his wife and spotted a flavor called pepe nero—black pepper and olive oil. Poddar, who’d emigrated from India in 1998 to study manufacturing systems and industrial engineering at the University of Wisconsin, was a man who took his sweets very seriously, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
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In search of a business opportunity and taken with the notion of “doing the audience a favor by delivering a superior product,” Poddar spent months researching the gelato market in general and Paciugo in particular. Earlier this year he fulfilled the company’s training and apprenticeship requirements, and in September he opened Chicago’s first Paciugo franchise, on the corner of Broadway and Melrose.
From its origins in Dallas, where it was founded by a family of Italian immigrants in 2000, Paciugo has grown into a chain of more than 40 gelaterias in nine states and Mexico. The company, which takes its name from an Italian word meaning “messy concoction,” holds as its claim to fame the ability to offer dozens upon dozens of flavors at multiple locations without sacrificing quality, like a sort of high-end answer to Baskin Robbins.
Poddar seems pretty seduced himself: he eats Paciugo gelato at breakfast, lunch, and dinner—sometimes for dessert, sometimes as an appetizer. “I have always had a wicked sweet tooth,” he explains. “In the part of India where I grew up, you start the meal by eating something sweet. Your body gets a sugar high, and your hunger actually increases.” If he’s not eating gelato himself, he’s often in the store handing samples to customers on tiny plastic spoons and urging, “Wait for the aftertaste! It’s very smooth, very silky.” Most of the time, it’s pepe nero he’s proffering. “Whenever I work the shift, it becomes the best seller,” he says.
