Ryan Pernice
Founder, R.O. Hospitality
A restaurant entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience working in the industry, I grabbed my first knife set at the age of 14 working as a grill cook at the Roasted Garlic. That job inspired a passion for the restaurant business, and I've been doing this ever since. I graduated with distinction from Cornell University in 2007 with a degree in hospitality management. From there I took a job in New York City as a restaurant consultant for Avero, coaching food & beverage managers on using business intelligence and data analytics to improve their operations. In 2009 I joined the opening team of Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group's first hotel-restaurant project: the acclaimed Italian trattoria Maialino in the Gramercy Park Hotel. As the team's data-focused Operations Specialist, I built tip-sharing spreadsheets and costing models, drafted floor plans, and wrote employee handbooks, training manuals, and side work checklists. It was a full immersion in "How to Run a Restaurant" with the greatest operators in NYC, and I loved it. But a holiday trip back home revealed the possibility of attaining a lifelong dream...opening my own place. In 2011, with the generous backing of New Kent Capital, we opened Table & Main with a confident vision of becoming the neighborhood clubhouse. Many years (and one Michelin Bib Gourmand) later, we've come a long way towards achieving that goal. In 2013, with my brother and business partner, Daniel, another USHG veteran (The Modern) and the most down-to-Earth, ingratiating wine expert I know, we opened our own Italian trattoria, Osteria Mattone. Then in 2018, with our business partner Woolery "Woody" Back, Table & Main's decade-plus-long Executive Chef, we opened Coalition Food and Beverage. Daniel and I followed that up with Casa Robles serving "tapas and tacos" in 2022. We've since sold those two businesses. We did well in Coalition's sale, and it's still open. We didn't do so well with Casa's sale, but we learned a TON in both cases. At this point, our restaurants are crushing it, setting new records for revenue and profitability year-after-year. I'm always looking for our next opportunity, but, until then, we're focused on burnishing the operations of our two neighborhood gems. When not physically at the restaurants, I'm exploring Atlanta's dining scene with my amazing wife, Kara, and our foodie friends. (Check out Kara's professional-level baking side hustle: Bakety!) Together Kara and I have four delightful daughters: Olivia, Caroline, Lily, and Gemma. We have a great time taking advantage of all that Roswell has to offer our family.