It all started with an advertisement on eBay. It was for a white fish and chip van emblazoned with the cheerful slogan 'Chippy Chappy'. When Kristian Pontone spotted it he wasted no time approaching the seller and settling the transaction. By that evening he was driving the 100-mile journey from Cardiff to Exeter – with his partner, Jodi Dickens, their young daughter and newborn son in tow – to pick up the keys.
That was six years ago. Looking back now Kristian considers the vehicle – and the "crazy" spontaneous trip to bring it home – a godsend. "I think sometimes you're guided without knowing it. But I feel like, as Italians, we're quite spiritual and superstitious as well," the 39-year-old laughs. "It just really feels like we were guided to do that because six years down the road we're sat here in the shop now. We have all this from a moment of saying: 'I'm going to give something else a go.'"
I'm sitting with Kristian in his and Jodi's pizzeria, Modo Pizza Romana, which opened six months ago in Whitchurch Road in Cardiff. Morning sunlight streams through the front windows and glints off the white-tiled counter. A comforting smell of dough fills the small space. With some imagination we could convince ourselves that we're lounging on a veranda in Italy – that the thrum of the busy road outside is actually the sound of Vespas and the Roman tramway.
Kristian first started thinking of running his own business in his university days. But after completing his degree in hospitality management he was snapped up by Nando's so his dream was put on hold. He worked for the chain for 12 years as a general manager and partner. That's how he met Jodi, 36, who worked at Nando's for 15 years.
The couple noticed a gap in the market when they explored Wales' street food scene. "There was no Italian vendor. I was surprised by it. There is loads of great Italian street food and no-one was doing it – aside from pizza," recalls Kristian, whose father is Italian and emigrated to Wales from Sicily.
The idea of setting up their own Italian food truck simmered away in the background but the decision to take the plunge wasn't exactly a no-brainer. Kristian was very happy working for Nando's and wanted to progress through the company. "But at the same time I had this street food thing going on and I really wanted to scratch that itch. And it made me realise the whole reason why I got into this was because I wanted to run my own business."
So they acquired the aforementioned fish and chip van and transformed it for its new purpose. Conveniently all the frying equipment they needed was in place. "Doing everything on a shoestring budget we decided keep everything inside and it just so happens that lots of street food in Italy is fried as well.'"
The name Chippy Chappy was swapped for Fritti, which means 'fried things' in Italian. They chose aranicini – stuffed rice balls coated with breadcrumbs and deep-fried – as their signature dish. "My grandmother, being Sicilian, used to make us arancini a lot when were in Sicily and when she was back over here visiting us," Kristian says. "It was one of the first things I tried to make for Jo as well when I was trying to woo her and she loved it so we decided to do arancini first because it's a great product to start with."
Their second main product was pizza fritta – essentially a small calzone that has been deep fried – which is another popular street food around southern Italy and Naples. Both he and Jodi were still working for Nando's at the time of starting the food truck. They did a few events in the summer of 2016 to start building up their business before Kristian handed in his notice in 2017 and decided to run Fritti full-time. "I decided, like anything, if you want to make a success of something you've got to jump in with two feet. So we decided to just go for it then."
The next few years saw them make a name for themselves in the local street food scene. They sold their food at the likes of Depot, Street Food Warehouse, and the Welsh Street Food Awards while people booked them for weddings and parties. Building their business while raising two children and maintaining family life was challenging, Kristian admits, but they had support from their family.
Jodi, who still had a job at Nando's, would rush from work to help Kristian at events while his parents or sisters looked after their children. He recalls bringing his baby son, now six, along with him to their prep kitchen. "My little boy has been with me from a baby... I used to take him there with me everyday when we were doing prep and he was in his highchair."
But then there were whispers about Covid in the news. By this point the pair had been mulling over the idea of changing their food offering to Roman pizza. Unlike the Neapolitan variety it has oil in the dough, which yields a thinner and crispier base. "I saw the writing on the wall quite early I think," Kristian recalls. "So I stopped tendering to events and then I just had it my mind that if anything does happen I'm just going to use the truck to do pizza from here and deliver it in some way.
"We just felt like Roman pizza was really underrepresented [in Cardiff]. So we really wanted to champion that because it's a delicious pizza and it's fantastic for takeaway." And so the food truck was refashioned once again, this time into Modo – meaning 'my way' in Italian – and stayed parked outside their house in Pontprennau. "It was something that kept me busy as well as offering something to the community as well – everyone was sat there on their hands with nothing to do."
For the next two and a half years their driveway was transformed into a takeaway. Just two weeks after the lockdown hit they started delivering pizza to people living locally. Jodi was put on furlough from her job so could help out more. The business blossomed with time. At first they were open just two days a week. "And then it escalated and we got a lot of orders so we decided to prepare more pizzas," Kristian says.
They recruited two drivers to help them deliver. Soon they joined Uber Eats and gradually increased their opening times until they were running four days a week. "I didn't really expect many orders when we turned [Uber Eats] on. It was when it was really hot. I sat in the garden with a beer and thought: 'If we get an order that would be great'. And then the tablet started making noises and I saw all these orders coming in. I was like: 'We've got to stop it – I don't think we've got enough pizza.'"
But their efforts weren't only about growing their business – they'd also give free pizzas to Pontprennau Primary School every Monday throughout the pandemic. Eventually they were selling their pizzas on all the major food delivery apps. I can't help but wonder – how did the neighbours react?
"They were brilliant," says Kristian. "Our first order on Uber Eats was my neighbour across the street. All of our neighbours were customers of ours all the way through the two and a half years. Once or a couple of times a week they'd come down and we got to meet people that we didn't really know in the area. And even now they still order here from the shop, which is great.
"We wouldn't be where we are now and we wouldn't feel the way we do about the business if it wasn't for the community in Pontprennau. There was a lot of business in Llanrumney as well for us – it was fantastic. And the feedback we were getting made us realise we couldn't go back to events. It felt like we'd found a little niche in the area and we should keep doing that."
It became apparent the business had outgrown their driveway. "Quite quickly we maxed out our capacity on the food truck. All the comments and reviews were were getting off everyone made us realise we could actually do this on a bigger scale." And so they started looking for a permanent space to house Modo. Though they wanted to stay in Pontprennau they stumbled across an opening in Whitchurch Road – a former opticians – where they would have more better access to the entire city.
After transforming the premises into a takeaway – fitted with gleaming electric ovens – they opened on a random Tuesday in August 2022. They didn't advertise it and there was little fanfare. Kristian ascribes this subdued approach to prudence. "We just really want to make sure that we get everything right rather than over-promising and under-delivering... So rather than going ahead with a big marketing campaign to draw people in we just wanted to make sure we were able to use this new space properly and deliver products that we're proud of."
With the country in the throes of the cost of living crisis Kristian recognises it was a risky time to open. Nevertheless they were busy with orders by the weekend and had sold out in their first week thanks to their loyal customer base in Pontprennau. "The community have been fantastic. When we opened in that first August everything was going back to Pontprennau. The drivers were laughing – they didn't even look at the address. They said: 'I'm going to Pontprennau, aren't I?'
"So Pontprennau and that area were supporting us massively – even when we first opened – and slowly now the other areas of Cardiff have started to try us out... Now we're at the point where our postcode here is our biggest business now where it was Pontprennau."
They have since expanded to four pizza chefs and five drivers and are looking to recruit more. Jodi now works as a teaching assistant while Kristian runs Modo full-time. She comes down at weekends and on busy days to help out. "While I'm making pizza she's talking to customers, organising the drivers – just the communicator of the team, orchestrating the whole thing."
As with so many independent businesses in the current economic climate Kristian admits it's a "bit of a struggle" and their trade "yo-yos" slightly up and down. "Every day is a new headline – every day is more worrying. Since we've opened the shop the cost of food has gone up dramatically... Our energy prices have doubled since when we first opened." But overall the business is thriving. "The support we're getting is fantastic. I'm doing something that I want to do that represents my heritage as well, which I'm really proud of."
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