About Nicolettos

Partners from birth, brothers Ryan and Danny Nicoletto spent their early years as most brothers do: fighting, breaking each other’s glasses (Ryan’s), arguing about Nintendo and cheating Track & Field with the almighty power pad. After spending their late teens and early twenties playing rock and roll across America, Danny and Ryan took a break from their longtime partner-in-crime antics and went on to separate dreams, Ryan in the food and design industries, and Danny in live music and coffee.  

The death of their father, Tony, brought the brothers back together and dreaming of a new partnership: an Italian restaurant, where everything was made from scratch, the right way. Nicoletto’s was born. Vintage machines were hunted down (from Illinois to Italy), refurbished, and set up in an East Nashville warehouse. After a year’s worth of testing and tweaking ingredients and methods, Nicoletto’s uncovered the perfect dried pasta, marinara, focaccia, and sausage recipes that would become the cornerstone of their business. 

The first dried pasta batches were sold locally at farmers markets and to restaurants. Swiftly after, the perfect restaurant location opened up, right next to the brother’s favorite watering hole in East Nashville, Mickey’s Tavern. With the help of friends (lookin’ at you, Damon Atkinson), hard work and late nights fueled by PBR, and more than a few tears, the first Nicoletto’s Italian Kitchen restaurant opened in 2016. The Hillsboro Village location opened soon after in 2019. Though slightly larger, the song remains the same: from-scratch, fast-casual Italian comfort food. 

Since starting, Nicoletto’s bustling dried pasta factory has tripled in size to accommodate growing wholesale and retail orders from shops and marinara-lovers across the country. Nicoletto’s is always made traditionally: bronze-cut. More texture means more sauce coverage which means you get the best pasta bowl you’ve ever had, every time— whether you get it at the restaurant, or you make it at home.