00:03Fortuner Brothers is a 50-year-old bakery started in 1976. One of my father and my two uncles came
00:12from Naples Italy in 1971. I was born and raised here. My second word was cooking so we worked
00:19here as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure I filled millions of cannolis. Just because I'm
00:24born into it doesn't necessarily mean that you know you're handed a silver spoon. What they don't
00:29tell you about is the hours, the sleepless nights, the aggravation, the gray hair or no hair at that
00:36point. If you want to do a small business be ready to take the punches and just roll with it
00:42and keep
00:43pushing forward. How about you? Just chocolate chip? My name is Biagio Fortunato. I'm one of the owners of
00:55Fortuner Brothers Bakery. We are one of the most iconic bakeries in Brooklyn and if you don't know
01:00that that's shame on you. When it comes to cannolis yearly wise we're probably somewhere in the ballpark
01:05about $300,000 a year and today we make them the exact same way we made 50 years ago. All
01:11right so
01:11let's go in the back we'll show you where the cannolis are being made and the back of the house
01:14to have.
01:16This is Piedro. He's gonna be pulling the cannolis. He's very quiet and shy. It's when the camera's not on
01:22he's uh you know he gets into his character. This is the cannoli dough. It gets put on the sheeter
01:28then it gets rolled up put on the table. We cut it with these homemade tools.
01:38This recipe is about 80 years old. It's been brought back from Italy. We use red wine instead of vinegar
01:46only because taste-wise it's better quality ingredient wise. Gives it a nice little color to
01:51it. The acidic taste to it is tastes better. Cannolis are probably the most popular dessert in Sicily.
01:58that's where they're from. He says hi mom. So once they're separated and we put them in the other
02:11room to get tied and fried. We have wooden dowels that we use. We egg wash the top of them
02:18so we
02:19can tie them. Then they go into the fryer. Some people use the table. Some people use the hand
02:28method. My uncle Frank uses the table. How long you been tying them? 50 years. 50? Same recipe,
02:35same technique, same system method since we opened. 50 years. There's no reason to change it. No if it's
02:42not broken. Why bother? The tying part isn't the issue. I think it's the time accumulation. It's a
02:50team effort. We get it out of the way and move on to the next deed that has to be
02:54done. So today
02:57we're making about 7500 cannolis. They're probably in the fryer for about eight minutes. When it comes
03:03to profit margins, bakeries are somewhere probably between 20 and 25%. I don't want to be that high.
03:10We're happy where we are. There's no reason to sacrifice quality for a ton of profit. Once they
03:18come out of the fryer, rule of thumb, you give it maybe a minute or two just so you know
03:23that they're not
03:24piping hot. And then you got to pull the sticks out quick because if not, it'll tie and get stuck
03:29around the shell. Here, if anybody wants to feel how hot the stick is, be careful. See, this is what
03:36happens when they're not tied properly. They open up. That's the biggest problem that you get. See,
03:41it's airy, crispy, flaky. Once it's done frying, you can fill them fresh ricotta. It's mixed between
03:55sheep milk and cow milk. We import from Italy. When it comes to pricing items, I mean, I keep hearing,
04:05oh, you know, you guys, for the ingredients you use, you know, you're lower priced. Do you really
04:11need to import sheep or gota from Italy when you can get it here? You don't, but if you want
04:16to keep
04:17tradition and keep quality, you have to. This is typically how we serve them here. The authentic
04:23way that we'll make some of them that way has pistachio on one end, usually, because it kind of
04:29differentiates the difference on it. And then you have a glazed cherry and then a orange.
04:39Another thing we make is a soyadella, a pastry made in Naples, Italy. It was invented there.
04:45The story is the actual pastry was Santa Rosa. Yes, it was born in the convent of Santa Rosa.
04:52Made by a nun. By a nun, yeah. A nun that had leftover simulina and leftover cheese and she put
05:00it together and out came something similar to this. This is Mike. We're going to get you on camera.
05:06He is the original founder, baker. He's the reason why this place exists, basically. How long are you
05:14doing this? Sixty-five years, for sure. Sixty-five years he's doing this. For reference point, he's 76. Child
05:22labor in Italy was legal. I started in the bakery when I was seven. Seven. 1970, when I came here,
05:30nobody
05:31makes a soyadella. It was very hard to find somebody. And so I took a bench. 1971, already I make
05:40a thousand
05:40dollar a week. Put this figure there. That was a lot of money that time. I'm going to be here
05:45until
05:46128. Why 128? I retired a long time ago. I know, but why 128? No more people like 100. My
05:53father said
05:53he wants to live to 100. No, 128. At 125, I'm going to retire. No more wars.
06:04Another huge item for us is our cookies. First step is making the dough. Second step is
06:10we're going to load the hopper. This is a depository that we bought. It's about 65,000.
06:16You can get at Empire Bakery Supplies in Hicksville, New York. Basically, it cuts our production time
06:21in half, if not faster, depending on the type of cookie we're making. This is Eddie. Eddie's one of
06:27our oven guys at Maine Bakers. Show them how you flip. All right. People complain if they don't get
06:34enough sprinkles on each cookie. A lot of people like the sprinkles, the chocolate chips. Those are
06:42the ones that sell the most. It's about 9,000 cookies we will be making today. I got about 140
06:49trays,
06:5160 cookies in each tray. There's about 30 different types of cookies. There's the cookies we make,
06:56cherry, chocolate dots, different types of cake cookies, pinoli cookies, rainbow cookies.
07:03They call it seven-layer cookie. If you count the layers, there's usually three layers of color
07:08sponge. Then there's two layers of jam. We use a raspberry and the apricot, and then two layers of
07:14chocolate. People tend to skimp on the chocolate part. They only do one layer. You know who you are.
07:19You can't call it a seven-layer cookie if it only has six.
07:27When it comes to product and billing, as far as ingredients, we go through hundreds of pounds of
07:32sugar weekly, hundreds of pounds of flour weekly. Butter-wise, close to probably 150 pounds,
07:40and then not to mention hundreds of pounds of ricotta. It's such a week-to-week thing. I mean,
07:47butter can be anywhere from 350 a pound to $4 a pound. A while back, there was a whole egg
07:53shortage
07:53thing that went on. I mean, they were up to almost like $270 a case. At that point, you know,
07:59what do
07:59you do? So these are convection rotary ovens. These ovens are about $60,000 to $70,000 each, but they
08:08need upkeep. Oven repair this week alone was $2,000. It's always something with them. Every time that you
08:14call someone to come in for something. Thank you. Thanks, Nino. Ciao. It's a couple hundred dollars
08:20here and a couple hundred dollars there. Biggest expenses besides payroll, insurance. Yes, owning
08:26the property, you don't have to pay rent, but you know, the building is 100 years old. So it's New
08:32York. Nobody wants to insure, you know, wood frame the building. You know, our insurance policies are like
08:3990,000 a year, which is insane. You're always paying something. So it's never a dull moment.
08:46Everybody good?
08:49I mean, you're born into this life. You're out of school, you come and help.
08:53It was never like a chore. It's enjoyable. The experience, the knowledge of learning things become
09:02fun. It's the day to day that becomes the stressful part of it. And can you do me a favor?
09:07You have an
09:07order coming to me, right? I think this business gives you tough skin. The hard part about it is
09:12that that tough skin doesn't have to be always there. It's family. So I've watched them fight,
09:22yell and scream and argue to the point where you're like, oh, this is bad. And then two minutes later,
09:28it's like they're having coffee together. So as hard to be around family that often, it's also good.
09:34They always seem to come through when you need it.
09:37Then we don't need anything else.
09:4050 years in business is nowadays is no small feat. Being a first generation born here,
09:47second generation owner kind of means a lot. And kind of like just waiting for the next generation
09:52to come in and take over as well. Yeah, we'll put them on the shelf. We have shelf space over
09:56there.
09:56I hold myself to a different standard and level. And I want to see this succeed for the next 50
10:02years,
10:02no matter what happens.
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