On April 21, 27-year-old chef and owner Adriano Piazza opened the doors of his new eatery, Pronto Italian Deli, in Downtown San Clemente after more than two years of planning and preparation. For Adriano, a Sicilian-born, classically trained chef who earned the Degree of Doctor in Gastronomic Sciences from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, in 2016, it’s the beginning of his dream to be a restaurateur.

And while Pronto Italian Deli is, indeed, brand new, the seeds for Adriano’s dream date back to the early 1980s, when his grandfather, Vincenzo, bought the property on Avenida Del Mar as a gift to his grandchildren, who weren’t even born yet.