General Manager, Buena Vida Tapas, Atlanta
By Nancy Woods
It’s not hard to see how Lorenzo Masini found his passion for hospitality and food. A native of Italy, he grew up in Rimini, an international tourist destination and seaside resort filled with hotels, restaurants, bars, and clubs.
While his parent’s businesses – a bakery and a drycleaner – were connected to the hospitality industry, his friend’s parents were restaurant, hotel and bar owners. “I’ve always been around restaurants and hotels since I was a kid,” he says. Another big influence for Lorenzo was cooking with his grandmother as a child.
That passion for cooking began playing out at 13, when he entered vocational school to become a chef. By 15, he was working prep in kitchens during the summer and soon took on bigger positions like line cook and sous chef. To broaden his knowledge, Lorenzo attended college specializing in hospitality management. “Cooking has always been my passion,” he says, “but ultimately the big part of my studies was management, and that’s what I really wanted to do.”
Over the next few years, he worked in Germany and Australia, and after returning to Italy to open help open new restaurants, he got the opportunity at age 25 to move to New York. There he shifted from executive chef to front of house manager. Finding life in New York “a bit too chaotic,” he moved to Atlanta in 2017, and after a few years at other restaurants, Lorenzo joined Buena Vida Tapas as General Manager in 2023.
Throughout his career, Lorenzo’s heritage has been front and center. “Italian hospitality is famous all around the world,” he says, “That’s a big part of my culture, and that’s what I’ve been trying to take with me.” That hospitality is on full display daily in his role at Buena Vida, as Lorenzo makes guests feel welcome and trusts his team members to do the same. “I try to show and teach my staff to elevate their commitment to serving and make a connection with the table. Don’t treat them like a customer, but treat them like someone that you care about.”
Lorenzo’s approach has built a loyal following of repeat guests, and he continually reaches out to the area community on the Beltline in the Old Fourth Ward to strengthen the restaurant’s place in the neighborhood. With new apartment complexes popping up over the years, he makes a concerted effort to visit each one, and once a month hold a special paella dinner for residents. “I really like to make connections and meet new people,” he says. As for his management style, Lorenzo follows the advice once offered by his father: “Run the restaurant in the same way that I would run my own business.”
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Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Performance Foodservice, and table sponsors, Society Insurance and Savannah Distributing, for making this event possible:
Presenting Sponsor
Table Sponsors
Savannah Distributing and Society Insurance
