Meet Alessandro and Stephanie Bonaventura of Gelato and Angels in Manhattan Beach

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alessandro and Stephanie Bonaventura.

Alessandro and Stephanie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Gelato and Angels is an authentic Italian-California inspired Gelateria founded by Alessandro and Stephanie Bonaventura. Alessandro with Italian heritage successfully completed his master at the gelato university in Bologna.

Bonaventura means “good adventure” in Italian- and craving a good adventure, we decided in 2011 to leave Europe and start a completely new life abroad in Los Angeles. In 2012 we opened our first store in Marina Del Rey and exactly 3 years ago, in 2014, we proudly opened Gelato and Angels in Manhattan Beach!

Within the four years, we learned a lot about the U.S. ice cream business and different tastes compared to Europe. We adapt continuously our variety of different flavors from traditional Italian flavors like “stracciatella”, Pistachio and “Biscotti” to more American flavors like ‘cookies and cream’, ‘brownie batter’ and ‘pancake’ gelato.

To stand out from other gelato stores we decided to only sell our high quality gelato in regular cups and cones – we wanted to add some entertainment to it – and therefore offer our gelato in many runways. We shape our gelato into spaghetti, top it with homemade natural strawberry sauce and white chocolate sprinkles to make it look like a plate of spaghetti!!! Other fun and popular sundaes are our “gelato Tacos” little caterpillar shaped sundaes for kids or hot Belgian waffles with gelato. Another tip highlight is our gelato infused donut! We use freshly baked donuts and croissant donuts-split them in half, file them with a scoop gelato, heat them up – so it’s warm outside and cold inside – for the ultimate indulgence….

After soon becoming very popular we decided to not only sell our gelato in the store but also offering it to restaurants and at caterings. We proudly sell our gelato to high class Italian and international restaurants in Los Angeles.

It doesn’t matter if for a wedding, business meeting, Bat Mitzvah or Birthday – we cater our gelato and donuts station for groups from 100 up to 900 people.

At Gelato and Angels, we create and handcraft our own gelato and Sorbet flavors fresh every day onsite with local and imported ingredients from Italy. All our gelato flavors are made with only fresh milk and natural ingredients. Most flavors are gluten free and much lower in fat and sugar compared to ice cream. Our Sorbets are vegan, made on a water, soy or coconut milk base. The fruit flavors are made with 2lbs fresh local fruits and water – they are fat and completely dairy free. Not only offer we seasonal specialties but also customized gelato request or unusual flavors like Olive Oil Black pepper.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to success was never smooth and just easy. There were many challenges and barriers we had to conquer. Especially arriving in a new country with different laws and a limited funding made it sometimes not easy to start the own business. There was a lot of research about permits and requirements necessary and sometimes things got so complicated that it seemed to be easier to just give up and move back. But were no pain – there is no gain. And every time we were facing a new challenge and we were thinking about giving up, we looked back and realized how far we have come and that giving up now would be too early. Somehow there is always a way and amazing things happen sometimes that keep you going – and we are happy and proud that we never gave up in the first year – which was definitely the hardest – and worked our way up from zero….

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Gelato and Angels – what should we know?
At Gelato and Angels we create and handcraft our own gelato and Sorbet flavors fresh every day onsite with local and imported ingredients from Italy. All our gelato flavors are made with only fresh milk and natural ingredients. Most flavors are gluten free and much lower in fat and sugar compared to ice cream. Our Sorbets are vegan, made on a water, soy or coconut milk base. The fruit flavors are made with 2lbs fresh local fruits and water – they are fat and completely dairy free. Not only offer we seasonal specialties but also customized gelato request or unusual flavors like Olive Oil Black pepper.

Within the four years in the gelato business, we learned a lot about the U.S. ice cream business and different tastes compared to Europe. We adapt continuously our variety of different flavors from traditional Italian flavors like “stracciatella”, Pistachio and “Biscotti” to more American flavors like ‘cookies and cream’, ‘brownie batter’ and ‘pancake’ gelato.

To stand out from other gelato stores we decided to not only sell our high quality gelato in regular cups and cones – we wanted to add some entertainment to it!! We sell our gelato in in many different fun ways.

Our highlight – and German specialty is our Spaghetti-Sundae: We shape our gelato into spaghetti, top it with homemade natural strawberry sauce and white chocolate sprinkles to make it look like a plate of spaghetti!!! Other fun and popular sundaes are our “gelato Tacos”, little caterpillar shaped sundaes for kids or hot Belgian waffles with gelato.

Another top highlight is our gelato infused DONUT! Yes-donut and gelato- a perfect match!!! We use freshly baked donuts and croissant donuts-split them in half, fill them with a scoop gelato, heat them up – so its warm outside and cold inside – for the ultimate indulgence….

After soon becoming very popular we decided to not only sell our gelato in the store but also offering it to restaurants and at caterings. We proudly sell our gelato to high class Italian and international restaurants in Los Angeles.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a wedding, business meeting, Bat Mitzvah or Birthday – we cater our gelato and donut station for groups from 100 up to 900 people.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
We believe the essential characteristics for being successful are:
1. Being authentic
2. Offering a high quality product
3. To care….

First of all, we believe that authenticity is one of the key elements to be successful in our business. Handcrafted gelato-made by an Italian with Italian passion and imported high quality ingredients – it couldn’t get closer to the original in Italy then that.

From our customers we constantly get the feedback that this is the best gelato they had outside from Italy!

Being a family owned and run business means that we want to be proud and stand behind what we are doing. So using only finest and fresh and healthy ingredients is our main goal. For us it’s important to not just sell a product -we sell an experience. If you come into our store first thing you smell the fresh baked waffles cones, and then you see the over 35 different, nicely decorated flavor selection. That’s a great start – but the other key to success is definitely the service and the fact that we care! We care about our customers and employees. We didn’t open that business to “just” make money (there are easier and faster ways to make money.) we opened this kind of business because it brings joy! Joy through a yummy, delicious treat, joy through a smiling happy server, joy overall. Doesn’t matter if you have a great day already or if You had a rough day or an annoying business meeting – you stop at our store… get a yummy gelato treat served with a smile and people leave happy and satisfied – there definitely isn’t any better motivation for us!! We love our happy customers-they give us the energy to work 7 days a week – sometimes up to 14 hrs. a day! We have customers that only come once a year to Manhattan Beach but they make us their mandatory stop-not just for their gelato fix but also to chat and talk. That’s definitely a special reward! Our employees are not just employees. They are handpicked and as soon as they start working at Gelato and Angels they become part of our family and serve and treat our customer with the same passion and care as we do.

Pricing:

• A small size gelato cup with up to 2 flavors $4.75
• Spaghetti shaped sundae starts at $ 6.75
• Geladough – gelato infused donut $ 6.75

Contact Info:

• Address: GELATO AND ANGELS
  308 Manhattan Beach Blvd
  Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
• Website: www.gelatoandangels.com
• Phone: 4243531436
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: #gelatoandangels
• Facebook: gelatoandangels

Image Credit:
Diana Feil photography, Sven Doornkaat photography, Frank Fastner photography