"When I was growing up, I was really raised in the grocery store business," Carrabba says. "We had Carrabba's Friendly Grocery, where my dad was the butcher, my grandpa was the owner and my grandmother was the cashier. We ran this business where all the customers had credit. I learned a lot about how to run a neighborhood business from the grocery store."
When Carrabba wanted to open Carrabba's, the whole family helped get it up and running. He and Damian Mandola were turned down for a loan by ten different banks before an 11th bank finally decided to take a chance on them.
The original restaurant was a 3,000-square-foot building that had previously been an adult bookstore, but the family built a wood-burning pizza oven in the space, and, thanks to Damian Mandola's reputation, the crowds came. In 1988 Carrabba and Mandola opened a second location, at Woodway and Voss, where Carrabba's father, John Charles, still makes sausage and his mother, Rose Marie, greets diners every day.
"In 1993 we got approached by Outback Steakhouse, who wanted to grow the company," Carrabba explains, but he doesn't want people to think Carrabba's is only corporate now. "Even though we have an interest in the chain Carrabba's, I own the two originals solely now, as well as Mia's, named after my daughter, and now Grace's, named after my grandmother."
In spite of his dedication to the traditional Italian recipes his grandmother first made for him more than 50 years ago, Carrabba isn't averse to change.
"The main thing for me is most companies lose their vision and culture as they get older, and we work hard to keep those old-fashioned values," he says. "But on the other hand, even though we hold onto our our old-fashioned values, I tore down the original Carrabba's and rebuilt it. You can hold onto your old values, but you can't become old. You can't become a dinosaur."
And that's where Grace's comes in. It's a departure from the classic Italian food of Carrabba's, and Johnny Carrabba thinks it may be his final foray into a new business venture.
"It's been a very interesting run," he says. "But again, I'm not the kind of person who wants to sit back and celebrate. I have work to do."
kaitlin.steinberg @houstonpress.com
