Three young guys—friends since childhood—move from Montclair, New Jersey, to Los Angeles. What are they going to miss most?
A good neighborhood Italian deli.
And that’s fundamentally how it all started for the Los Angeles sandwich chain Ggiata.
With five units and a sixth expected to open this year, Ggiata has become one of the buzziest fast-casual concepts emerging in the sandwich world, offering elevated variations of classic Italian sandwiches with a sprinkling of references from “The Sopranos.”
On the menu are hot and cold sandwiches ($15 to $18), like the Spicy P, with a chicken cutlet, spicy vodka, mozzarella and pesto on a perfect sesame baguette; or the classic Italian, with cotto ham, salami, hot capicola, smoked muenster, lettuce and tomato with vinaigrette and Calabrian aioli. But a breakout star has been the Perfect Chicken Caesar Wrap, also featuring the crispy cutlet but made crunchier with parmesan herb croutons and the house-made Caesar dressing for dipping.
@how.kev.eats First time trying a Caesar Wrap and it didn’t disappoint @Ggiata Delicatessen #foodreview#mukbang♬ original sound - how.kev.eats
Ggiata’s salads also go up a notch from specialists like Sweetgreen and Cava. Arugula and fennel are tossed with shaved parmesan and a lemon vinaigrette. In another, grilled radicchio, endive and fennel are topped with roasted pistachios, goat cheese, roasted broccolini and balsamic vinaigrette. Both are $13.
Ggiata has taken off, despite its improbable beginnings. Co-founders Noah Holton-Raphael, Jack Biebel and Max Bahramipour, admit now they never intended to open a deli.
It’s a story that begins with a friendship.
Holton-Raphael and Biebel have known each other since third grade. Bahramipour entered the friendship much later—sixth grade. The three describe themselves as quite the entrepreneurs in the early years, selling lemonade (“We cornered the lemonade-stand market in Montclair,” said Biebel) and shoveling sidewalks in the winter.
They went their separate ways for college. Holton-Raphael to the University of Michigan, Biebel to the University of Maryland, and Bahramipour to NYU.
After graduating, they took a trip out to LA to visit a friend for “one epic weekend.” And they were hooked.
The three moved West together in 2018 and found jobs in their respective fields, Holton-Raphael in tech, Biebel in consulting and Bahramipour in fashion.
But being New Jerseyites, they had a hole in their hearts that could only be filled with a really good Italian sandwich.
Holton-Raphael explained: In New Jersey, the neighborhood gathering spot is the deli. It’s where friends meet up, and kids come after school or sports. It’s that “third place” that Starbucks aspires to be.
So the trio traveled all around Los Angeles, looking for some equivalent of the delis they grew up with. They found some great sandwiches—the Jewish delis in LA are as good if not better than on the East Coast, Holton-Raphael said. But they couldn’t find an Italian deli that truly felt like home.
“At the time, we just chalked it up to being a bit of a bummer. But it wasn’t like we were going to do anything about it,” said Holton-Raphael. “There was really no vision of a food business. There was no vision of Ggiata.”
That is, until 2019, when they got bored.
Or really, Holton-Raphael said he got bored with his corporate job. And the conversation between the three friends began to turn toward the idea. If they were going to open a deli, how would they do it?
They began to talk about all aspects of the brand—the logo, the color scheme, the music that might be played in this hypothetical shop.
There was one important piece missing: the food. None of them had foodservice experience.
Holton-Raphael decided he should be “tribute” and he volunteered to quit his job and go work at the restaurant Gjusta, a highly acclaimed deli-bakery-café-market that was a sister to the even hotter restaurant Gjelina.
Biebel said he and Bahramipour did not approve.
“We were like, ‘Whatever you do, don’t quit your job,’” said Biebel. “The next day he calls us: ‘Guys, I quit my job.’ We were like, alright, I guess we are doing a deli now.’”
At Gjusta, Holton-Raphael met Rudy Beuve who was then the sous-chef. Described as “a Parisian Thor,” Beuve (who now owns Le Great Outdoor in Santa Monica) was willing to help develop the menu as a consultant. The sandwiches and sides he developed became the core of Ggiata’s menu.
The Spicy P at Ggiata gives a twist to a classic chicken parm. | Photo courtesy of Jakob Layman.
The trio decided to start with a food truck. They leased an old FedEx vehicle and got ready for their launch.
It was February 2020.
It was, of course, rather unfortunate timing. Covid hit and restaurants shuttered for dine-in business. Food trucks disappeared.
Miraculously, the partners got their deposit back on the truck. They decided to try a ghost kitchen instead, since the world had shifted to delivery and takeout.
Ironically, the CloudKitchen site was across from a graveyard, “where all good restaurant ideas go to die, was the vibe,” said Holton-Raphael. “We figured if we failed, at least we could fail quickly and get out of the investment.”
But it didn’t fail. Holton-Raphael said that was in part because they approached the business like they would have any direct-to-consumer brand, using social media to build awareness.
By 2021, Ggiata was ready to move into a brick and mortar. The partners had a fortuitous encounter with a developer who was revitalizing a strip of abandoned furniture retail warehouses in central LA.
No one was signing restaurant leases at the time, with Covid still dampening dine-in. But this developer helped them get into a tiny 750-square-foot outlet doing delivery and takeout in the budding community. (That location would later grow to 2,500-square-feet with dine in and a big patio.)
With the help of funds raised from friends and family, Ggiata grew. Now the company is able to fund new growth by reinvesting profit, though the partners are reluctant to share details on sales, except to note how crazy busy the restaurants are.
Newer units devote more space to dine-in. |Photo courtesy of Jakob Layman.
For now, the focus is on building infrastructure and fine-tuning the guest experience.
Joining the team is Executive Chef Celerino Cruz, who is bringing more seasonal offerings to the menu. The trio recruited Sweetgreen’s former VP of supply chain, culinary and food safety Casey Gleason. Desserts (limoncello olive oil cake, coconut carrot cupcakes and stunning rainbow cookies) are made by Cristy Erickson.
There are no plans to franchise, Holton-Raphael said. Not surprisingly, private equity has already come knocking.
But when they knock, Biebel said, “We welcome them in, give them a sandwich and tell them what we’re focused on doing.”
The plan is to grow slowly and thoughtfully, they said.
In three to five years, Holton-Raphael said he hopes Ggiata will become an iconic LA sandwich shop, “so when people from San Francisco, New York, Chicago, or Dallas come off the plane, they want to get a burger from In-N-Out, a smoothie from Erewhon, and a Spicy P from Ggiata.”
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