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George Joseph Switzer III runs Queen Ann Ravioli, a Brooklyn pasta shop founded in 1972. Inside, vintage machines produce thousands of pounds of pasta each week, including up to 2,000 boxes of ravioli a day. Switzer generates nearly $2 million in annual revenue even as rising costs, mass production, and a changing neighborhood put pressure on his business, but for him the challenge is not just making pasta, it’s preserving a disappearing way of doing business one batch at a time.
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00:01The oldest piece of machinery I have is from 1909,
00:04and that thing is the only one in the country
00:07still functioning on a daily basis.
00:10It's like a time capsule of a machinery museum
00:14that functions with my antique employees also
00:17that have been with me for decades.
00:20I sometimes have conversations with the machines
00:23of, why are you doing this to me?
00:25Or, you know, thank you, God, for running.
00:28So I'm George Joseph Switzer III,
00:30and I manage Queenie and Ravioli.
00:33Business is like this disappearing.
00:36It's hard to find, you know, the labor.
00:38It's also hard to find the clientele.
00:40And then there are people that are mass-producing.
00:44There's no way to compete with a big pasta brand.
00:47These people have larger factories,
00:49more automated, more efficient machinery.
00:53But I feel that, you know, we put our spin or our edge on it,
00:56and that's what makes us a little different than them.
00:59This is where I am, and this is where I'm always going to be.
01:09This is the production area of Queen Anne.
01:11Let me take you in for a look.
01:13Queen Anne Ravioli was started in 1972 by my father-in-law Alfredo.
01:18He had previous experience working in ravioli or pasta-type stores,
01:22and he wanted to go out on his own.
01:24And Queen Anne was born.
01:27I worked here from 82 to 85,
01:29when my father-in-law didn't want me to work here
01:31because I was dating his daughter.
01:32And I felt uncomfortable also,
01:34that finally he said, all right, we'll give you a try.
01:37I'm really not the owner in a sense.
01:40You know, my wife is the owner.
01:42So, you know, I work for my wife.
01:45So this is a mixer and a grommel, a combination unit.
01:49It's an automatic unit.
01:50It's probably the newest thing we've got in the store,
01:53but it's at least 50 years old.
01:55A lot of places don't use a grommel,
01:57but we want to make sure that our dough is smooth.
02:00There's no blemishes.
02:01There's no air pockets,
02:03which means the ravioli will not open in the water,
02:06and you won't have cheese all over the place.
02:10This is our Queen Anne's Pasta Machine.
02:13The machine was made in 1909 in Manhattan,
02:1668 Green Street.
02:18We also believe that this is the only machine of its type,
02:22still in daily use, I'd say in the country.
02:28All right, so this is Gerardo.
02:29He's a Pastieri over here,
02:31and what he's doing is he's loading the machine with dough.
02:34At the very bottom of this is a dye.
02:37The dye will determine the shape of what pasta's coming out.
02:40Now what he's doing is he turned on the pump.
02:42We're building up pressure,
02:44and the hydraulic fluid under pressure
02:46is going to push that cylinder down,
02:48and the pasta's going to come out of the bottom.
02:51Sort of like when I was a kid,
02:52Play-Doh was the toy that would be the same way.
02:56He'll cut away the first little bit of it,
02:58and then he'll go brettuccini,
03:01drying them on sticks like they did when this machine was new.
03:05So 1909, that pasta press was about $600.
03:09Today, a new machine to make pasta,
03:11that could be like a $50,000 machine to just make pasta.
03:16So it's an expensive business to get into
03:19because of the infrastructure needed.
03:23Now when I'm in my office doing paperwork,
03:25I'm always listening.
03:27I'll know right away if something's wrong,
03:29by the sound something's making.
03:31We always have a backup electric motor.
03:34We have a backup belt.
03:35I have backup gears, things that will break.
03:38We have chain, as if we were a bicycle store.
03:41We had the pasta machine break once, the main machine.
03:43It's from 1909.
03:45Something's broke.
03:46Let me look at it.
03:47Oh, what do you mean? It's broke.
03:48Well, am I going to break it again if I look at it?
03:50And the next day when everybody's walking in,
03:51oh my God, what are you going to do?
03:53Click and dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.
03:55What'd you do?
03:56I says, I fixed it.
03:58How'd you fix it?
03:58I says, I took the time to look.
04:05This is one of the oldest machines I have.
04:08This is a 50 count ravioli.
04:10This machine here has got to be about 75 years old.
04:12This is the hopper, we call it.
04:14This is where the dough goes.
04:15That's the top layer of the ravioli.
04:18And here in the hopper in the rear, the dough gets fed through
04:21and that's the bottom layer of the ravioli.
04:23As they meet and come through, you get an injection of the filling inside.
04:29There's a fan in use over there to just take that little bit of moisture
04:33that make the dough stick.
04:34And then these variety of wheels cut the pasta across.
04:39That's so that when you put that in the water, it'll break apart on its own.
04:44As it cuts to make this the correct size, it takes off the edge.
04:47So now this edge is reusable.
04:50We try to, you know, not waste anything.
04:52If you're Italian, the last thing you do is waste food.
04:55You don't waste food.
04:58Today we may be using about like 3,000 or 4,000 pounds of flour.
05:01And this is sort of slow in a sense.
05:04You know, the weekend it's a lot more.
05:05Oh, we get about 10,000 pounds of flour delivered a week in here.
05:10We're probably spending about $25,000 to $35,000 on a weekly basis just for the consumables.
05:16There might be 4,000 or 5,000 pounds of cheese.
05:20Of all the ingredients that go into a regular cheese ravioli,
05:24the imported Italian pecorino romano is the most expensive ingredient.
05:28The ricotta or the impastata, forget about it.
05:34This is the crepe machine.
05:36Oh, this machine has got to be 60 years old.
05:40And each of these pans picks up oil, just like you'd put in a frying pan.
05:44So as the plate comes over the batter, which is pumped up, it covers the plate.
05:49The plate will flip, and then as it goes around, it goes through the heat,
05:53comes out the other side cooked.
05:55Then he removes it by hand, stacks them up into 7-pound increments,
05:59and then they come over to this station, and this gentleman fills the crates into the monogorta.
06:04The monogorta is sort of a tube-like pasta, filled, not sealed, so you can't put them in water.
06:11Now this is a sausage press.
06:13If you're in a salamaria, you're going to see something like this making sausage,
06:17a machine that's used for a whole different industry, but that works with us.
06:21And everything is handmade, six get put in the box, you know, all by hand, all by him.
06:29The biggest challenge of being a business owner is keeping the business going
06:33and dealing with everything from money, machinery, to attitudes, employees.
06:39The major costs to run this business would be labor, right, which is the biggest single outlay the store makes,
06:46you know, to keep everybody happy, keep everything running.
06:48Then would be utilities, you know, obviously the electric thing, the biggest utility used,
06:52and then there would be the insurances for everything that you would have to have.
06:57No matter what, a certain amount of money has to be made on a weekly basis, daily basis, to run
07:02this store.
07:03You always have to have to save for the rainy day, and then, you know, even if it could rain
07:08a lot more than you thought,
07:10so you have to adjust.
07:15So this is a tortellini machine, and as you can see, it's making tortellini.
07:19Right now we're making a cheese-filled tortellini.
07:21There's a lot more going on than what goes on in the ravioli machines.
07:26This machine requires its own specific backup machine, which would be what I call the dough breaker.
07:31This is really a sheeter.
07:33So this is Roberto, he's the pastieri, we call him, and Roberto makes all the tortellini.
07:38Roberto, how many years you working here? 30?
07:4128, almost 30 years. Say I'm almost correct.
07:46A lot of the guys that are working here have been with me for decades.
07:48We all grew up here together.
07:51So what's happening here is he's making dough, and as the dough is coming out,
07:55he's going to fix it around the roller.
07:57The dough then is going to continue to put itself on the roll until it becomes big enough to be
08:04put into here to feed into the machine.
08:07The dough, as you'll see, goes on there like a paper towel roll.
08:10So as the thing is pulling in the dough, feeding it, if you looked in here, there are circles.
08:16The dough gets pushed through the circle, cut into the form.
08:20As it's cut, another arm pops out and injects filling into it.
08:25After the filling is injected, it's flapped, and then as you can see, brought around and sealed.
08:30And then it's dropped down.
08:33Everything has to happen at a certain point.
08:36It's very intricate.
08:38It's a nightmare if this thing goes down.
08:40A nightmare.
08:44These are something that are always breaking on the tortellini machine.
08:48This is called a T-nut.
08:49So this would be how you control the filling, by where you would slide this in around.
08:53So when I have these made by a machine shop, I'll have them make a dozen,
08:56and maybe these will last two years or so, you know, through normal use.
08:59But you have to have parts.
09:03What's happening on these racks here is he's doing a little bit of a drying, so they won't stick.
09:09And then what happens is after we shake these racks up, right, and it's all as dry as can be,
09:14then it'll go right into a packing station.
09:19Just off the top of my head, we might make 25 different types of ravioli, different shapes,
09:24and then when you count the pasta and everything else, there it's like at least 50 different cuts
09:28that we rotate around in and out.
09:33So this is a round ravioli machine.
09:36This is the biggest seller, the round ravioli.
09:39I got to be making at least over a million boxes of round ravioli in a year.
09:45After the filling being injected, the upper wheel is forming the circle and sealing the top to the bottom.
09:52And that lower wheel that's a little forward is actually cutting the ravioli from the main sheet.
09:59This is a very thin dough. Some places might use a thicker dough and use less cheese because you've met
10:04your weight of the ravioli itself.
10:07But we don't do that.
10:11The ravioli come out and get hand-packed into what we're doing now is a bulk tray.
10:17And then we date them, co-date them that these ravioli were made today so we can keep track of
10:24things.
10:25The wagon will hold 200 boxes, and then when that's full they go into the freezer.
10:31Boxes is a big expense, maybe 7,000 or 8,000 a week.
10:38We could be producing 1,500 to 2,000 boxes of ravioli a day, and then that's not counting what
10:44we're doing on the pasta press, long and short goods.
10:46That could be, you know, 500 pounds worth a day.
10:49I'll sell a box of ravioli, a 16-count round, you know, fresh made, and they'll be about $9 a
10:54box on the ravioli.
10:58What total revenue for 2025 is under $2 million.
11:02I'd say we do about 75% of our business is wholesale and 25% is the retail.
11:07Now there's other people that may want to sell ravioli, and they may want to have their own name on
11:12it.
11:13So you may be eating my ravioli with someone else's name on it and not know it.
11:21Yeah, businesses like this are disappearing.
11:26Retail is shrinking because the neighborhood is changing.
11:30And then a lot of Italians, people that would eat this product, have moved out and moved away.
11:34So, you know, you lose a little bit on the retail.
11:37It's hard to find, you know, the labor.
11:39It's also hard to find the clientele.
11:41And then there are people that are mass producing.
11:44Now when I grew up in Brooklyn, you were closed on a Sunday.
11:47Everybody respected the Sunday.
11:49But when the mall opened, now everybody's open on a Sunday.
11:52So then you started seeing things disappear, even back then when I was a little kid.
11:58So for example, a small business is important because when you had hardware stores,
12:03you could walk in and just say, I want a hammer.
12:06Now if you want a hammer, you have to park in a lot, walk 150 feet, go into a Home
12:10Depot,
12:10get lost in the aisles, get on a lane, and 15 people later, there's your hammer.
12:18And that's why I think you need the small stores.
12:20You know, there's an interaction where now the small store may be able to tell you how to use the
12:23hammer.
12:23You better get the microphone and start singing on a Friday.
12:26I'll see you shook your ears.
12:27The windows will crack.
12:30It sort of makes me sad in a way because what I see now happening is everybody is sort of
12:36isolated,
12:38you know, not willing to interact or help, you know, get involved.
12:45No one wants to get involved anymore.
12:48Personal self, I'd like to take it a little easier and, you know, let my son lose a little of
12:53that hair like I did running this place for all these years.
12:57You know, and then spend more time, you know, like my wife and I, you know.
13:03This is my son George Joseph Switzer, the fourth, the heir apparent to Queen Anne.
13:11I mean, all my life I've been coming here.
13:13I remember coming here after school, but then like mid-twenties, I started actually making the stuffed shells.
13:18I am the sole maker of the stuffed shells.
13:20And other than that, it's sort of just, you know, wherever I can float around.
13:25He's easing into it little by little.
13:27It's a lot.
13:28The office will probably be the next step in terms of this is the pricing, you know, watching everything going
13:33in and out of the bank.
13:34And, you know, it's sort of a mom and pop business and, you know, you have to really watch everything.
13:39I mean, as long as, as long as everything is still working and it's coming out the same, I don't
13:44feel like changing anything.
13:45But, you know, maybe in the future they got a little robot that'll close all the boxes for us.
13:50That'll be a lot easier.
13:51But that's it.
13:52Do you have a business strategy?
13:57Succeed is my strategy.
14:02I have a lot of people lately saying, please don't close.
14:06Please don't leave.
14:07We need your type of stores around.
14:09That's the biggest thing I hear now.
14:11And then it all depends on who's saying it.
14:12You know, we would have a mother come in decades ago with the daughter.
14:16Then the daughter comes in with her daughter.
14:18So it was also generational in a way, which I was always very happy about, you know.
14:24You stay in one spot long enough and just do something right.
14:29I suppose the legend then grows around you.
14:32I think the trick is, can you do it every day the same way for 20 years?
14:38That's the trick.
14:43People want to pat me on the back and sometimes it's like, you know, okay, you know, thank you.
14:48But, you know, what I'm doing is just what I'm doing every day and I'm doing it every day for
14:5330 years.
14:54So if you did it every day for 30 years, you would become an expert at whatever you did.
14:59Throwing darts.
15:00Throw a dart every day for 30 years and you'll hit the bullseye every day after that.
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