A pair of college buddies from Italy have taken their love for a Mexican staple, the humble avocado, and grown it into a burgeoning restaurant empire in the Big Apple. Alessandro Biggi and Francesco Brachetti, who had never even tried the fruit (yes, fruit) when they met nearly two decades ago at a university in Milan, recently opened their fourth – and largest – Avocaderia in the city.

“Our dream was to be on Fifth Avenue by the Empire State Building and the Flatiron Building,” Biggi, 35, told Side Dish. However, the pair didn’t dream about opening restaurants after they graduated from business school. They both took tech jobs.