From the outside, Little Italy Ristorante looks like just another restaurant, but step through the doors and you are immediately transported to a quaint corner restaurant in Italy. Violet Pedraza co-owns and operates the restaurant with Peter Cimino, a Sicilian living in Henderson, Nevada and Adam Talbert, who lives in Illinois.

Cimino and Talbert grew up and went to school to together in Illinois and own restaurants in Arizona and Illinois. Pedraza is their on-location manager and oversees daily operations. “Peter and Adam started (Little Italy) three years ago,” Pedraza said. “They’ve been working on it since then. I jumped in on it around the first of this year.”