Bruno Serato, owner of the Anaheim White House Restaurant, may be better known nationally and internationally for his charity work than his success as a business owner.
He’s received a rosary blessed by Pope Francis; been knighted by the Italian government; been named a CNN national hero; and earned numerous other awards for Caterina’s Club, the nonprofit organization named after his mother that’s provided more than 1.2 million meals over 10 years to children living with their parents in low-cost hotel rooms near his restaurant.
Serato, despite all of the accolades, said, “I’m still the 14-year-old boy that first started working in his mother’s and father’s restaurant in Italy.” And he apparently prefers to talk about the people working at the restaurant and charity instead of himself.
“Mama”
“Mama” is responsible for the charity’s success, he said after accepting his latest honor, a Business Journal Excellence in Entrepreneurship award, at the Hotel Irvine on March 10 (see related stories on pages 1, 6 and 13).
Serato and his mother, who was on a visit here from Italy about 10 years ago, were at the Anaheim Boys and Girls Club, whose board he served on, when they saw a 9-year-old boy eating potato chips while the other children played with each other. The boy explained that his parents were unable to afford groceries to make dinner.
“‘Why don’t you feed him pasta?’ my mother said to me,” Serato recalled. He instead fed 80 children that night and has continued to feed children every night since.
The charity relies on Serato’s success as a restaurateur, and he attributes the restaurant’s success to his parents and to people who mentored him at previous restaurants. He also credits his sister, who moved to Orange County before him. She phoned him in 1980 while he was working at the family’s restaurant in Verona, Italy, to tell him that a new restaurant was about to open here.
So he moved across the globe at age 25 with $200 in his pocket to become a dishwasher at La Vie en Rose restaurant in Brea. He quickly moved from the back of the restaurant to a night-shift waiter position, and in 1985 became general manager, along the way learning that attention to every detail was required to successfully run a high-end restaurant.
In 1987, Jim Stovall, then owner of the Anaheim White House, called Serato with an offer to sell the business to him. Serato said he couldn’t accept. “I still only had $200,” he said in a phone interview with the Business Journal.
“He (Stovall) said that he appreciated my honesty, gave me a handshake,” and offered a verbal deal to lease the restaurant over a few years, Serato said. The relationship still means a lot to Serato. “It would probably take 20 lawyers for the same deal to occur today.”
Serato completely changed the restaurant’s menu. The Anaheim White House would offer Northern Italian fare with a French flair. Its entrées would be flavored with herbs and olive oil instead of heavy gravy and cream sauces.
He personally selected wines to pair with the courses and redesigned the restaurant’s interior.
“I’m fortunate that the outside of the building, which was built in 1909, is so beautiful,” Serato said.
The restaurant grew in popularity and has attracted Hollywood stars and even former President Jimmy Carter as customers.
Serato said he secured a bank loan about four years after the verbal agreement with Stovall and bought the restaurant outright. His mother, though, always reminded him to share with others. “I come from a very poor family and personally ate spaghetti with marinara sauce every day,” Serato said during a CNN Heroes interview.
He has raised more than $1 million and 22 tons of food for the children living near his restaurant and said he makes sure the children eat healthy by running lots of vegetables through a blender and into the marina sauce for their dinners.
Housing
Serato may have even surpassed his mother’s expectations when he created a program to help hotel families move into their own apartments. The program provides the security deposit and usually the first and last months’ rent and has helped 61 families.
Serato “created a legacy with the community,” said David Krajanoski, co-managing partner of law firm Singer Lewak’s Orange County office, as he introduced Serato at the entrepreneurs awards luncheon.
Serato said it’s all the result of a 14-year-old’s passion for restaurants. “It’s very challenging work, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And I can’t stop.”
