A Time for Healing at La Brezza Ristorante
Last Monday, I went to La Brezza Ristorante for dinner. I hadn’t been in a long time. I was invited by Maurizio Abdi via a message on LinkedIn. Maurizio was reaching out to all the contacts of his father, Marco Abdi. Marco died in 2015. I was thrilled to receive Maurizio’s message and told him I would drop by which is what I did last week.
Marco started the restaurant after buying a large house on a nice corner lot in Bridgeland. This was back in the days when Bridgeland was mostly residential. The community is now very up-scale. After Marco died, Filamina Abdi, Marco’s widow and Maurizio’s mother, along with her mother (the chef), managed the restaurant. They did a superb job. Recently, ownership was transferred to Maurizio and his sister, Madina. They are 50/50 owners. Here is a link to an excellent article about Maurizio’s transition from playing professional football in Germany and Italy to owning and managing his family restaurant. Madina is in the video as well.
Moses Woldu, January 23, 2023, Global News
The sad part is that I hadn’t been back to the restaurant since Marco’s death. For that, I apologize to Filamina. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t been back until Maurizio sat down with us. He asked me what my connection was with Marco. I told him about how both Marco and I are Africans. Marco was born in Somalia. For a variety of reasons, he ended up in Italy where he learned Italian and how to work hard. Eventually, he emigrated to Canada and wound up in Calgary. I, on the other hand, was born in Uganda and lived in Tanzania with my parents. They were originally from Edmonton. In the 1970s, my parents decided to move back to Edmonton. In the late 1980s, I moved to Calgary to attend business school at the University of Calgary. It was while I was working at the old General Hospital that I was first a guest at La Brezza and got to know Marco. When my business partner, Damon Lebrun, and I started Anduro Marketing in 2001, I reacquainted myself with Marco. I often took clients there for lunch.
At some point, my relationship with Marco turned from being a patron to a friendship. He would often invite me for lunch. Just the 2 of us talking about our businesses and his plans for the future. I won’t go into the details but Marco had a very good contact in Saudia Arabia that had good potential. Some of our discussions were just dreams, some were concrete and possibly executable.
For example, during one of our discussions, Marco lamented that his restaurant used to be at the top of the reviews for “Calgary restaurant” on TripAdvisor and Yelp but recently the listing had dropped and he was concerned. In addition, a few negative reviews were showing up. I suggested that we have a party and invite a bunch of friends and contacts to join us and encourage them to write a review. It was sold out in a matter of days. The event was an overwhelming success. It was a great event for our company, Anduro, to thank our clients and contacts. It was an excellent branding opportunity for La Brezza. And within a couple of months, La Brezza rose to the top of the rankings once again. This was back in 2011.
Rankings on TripAdvisor for La Brezza Ristorante are still very good. The restaurant is #2 for Calgary+Restaurant+Northeast.
What I didn’t realize before going to the restaurant was the pain that I had not resolved. Marco and I were close. We had a special relationship. To be fair, I was not the only one - Marco had a tremendous ability to bond with most of his patrons. I apologized to Maurizio for not having returned as a guest and being a supportive customer. I realize now that I was in denial that Marco had died. Even though I had attended his memorial service I couldn’t face the reality that he was gone.
While I was talking the emotions I felt became overwhelming. I wiped away tears as looked at Maurizio and said that I was sorry. It was a painful experience but one that I’m glad to have had. I have started to heal the deep hole that developed at Marco’s death.
On Google Maps, the restaurant has a rating of 4.3 based on 437 reviews. This is good but there is room for improvement. Maurizio and I will talk about this in the new year. Maybe we will have another event.