So, in January 2024, as I started my journey looking for a new job, an opportunity to freelance arose. It was Restaurant Week, and my friend Kevin Haas asked me if I wanted to write a piece on a local restaurant. I suggested my favorite pizza place in town – a locally-owned nondescript neighborhood Italian restaurant named Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant & Pizza.
Now, I know a little bit about pizza – my friend Max Gersh and I hosted a podcast called “The Weirdoughs” where we’d eat pizza from a different local place each week and talk about Pizza… and life. So I’ve had my fair share of Pizza.
But what I didn’t expect was an outpouring of love for this little-known spot from generations of neighbors former and current. 40 years of built up goodwill over two generations led to one of the best read stories of Restaurant Week – more than 1600 organic responses on Facebook, and more that 250 shares and comments.
For Rockford, and for the Rock River Current, this was a huge impression, and a nice way to keep my name and writing in front of an engaged audience.
There wasn’t an expectation of this “going viral” on a local level, but it did because of the hard work and high standards of this great little dive of a restaurant that had never lost sight of their methods of success: Make a Good Product. People will be loyal if your product consistently hits the mark.
So that’s the most important takeaway one can have when writing – seek out an exceptional subject, be consistent with your excellence, and you can keep doing what you love for a long time.
