history
Al, Michael and Frankie are three cousins grew up on the streets of Brooklyn in New York. Their families are descended from italians emigrated to America in search of fortune at the beginning of 1900, during the Midwest states colonization. They had a normal life and a typical New York - in the '90s - childhood and teenage.
It seems past a century, and indeed is the case, since grandmother Mary, then just fifteen, moved with her parents to Texas, leaving Naples. With a single hope: one day she would be back.
An episode that made Mary happy and that in the following years she used to tell her small grandchildren every night as a bedtime fairytale, was the old bull story. There was indeed in the entire herd a very nervous bull, suspicious and recalcitrant against employers but extremely jealous and protective with the flock. It was barely impossible to touch it or bring it closer; many people considered it a threat, so that they even thought to kill it. Mary was the only one to oppose; for her that bull was a noble animal and somehow it reminded Mary her character and her origins: proud but fairs. One day, while she was cooking one of her usual tasty dish for herdsmen returning from grazing, assisted at an other problem created by the old bull. She had an idea then; without being scared and without telling anyone, at night she approached the stables and left near the bull a bowl with a bit of sauce that had just prepared with her favourite ingredients: a mixture of italian tradition and american pioneers cuisine. The day after the bull showed unexpectedly much more meekness towards all, without creating any kind of problem during grazing. Mary noticed that the bowl of sauce had been emptied. The day after then she did the same, and the day after again. It became a sort of rite, a tacit pact between her and the bull. Every day, once returned from the pasture, she left the bull a bit of that special sauce, and the bull, to thank her for that gentle offer became the most faithful and long-lived bull of the whole herd. The grandchildren never forgot that old lullaby used by "Grandma Mary" to send them to sleep. They had always thought it was a story of invention, but the grandmother seemed so sure that ultimately they ended up to believe it.
Years passed and at the top of their success the three cousins decided to go for a holiday in Texas in the old family ranch. The scenery is the typical of three men, that, between a chat and a laugh, a desire and a secret, a hamburger and a beer, also undertake serious speeches, remembering their own childhood. During that stay, a bit joking a bit not, they speak about their own future. They are now adults, and is therefore stronger the awareness that their present is mainly the result of the sacrifices of their families that had left everything and everybody to offer them a better fate. Here's then the idea: opening a restaurant! Creating the meeting between the originality of texans flavours and the taste of authentic mediterranean cuisine handed down from their fathers and never forgotten. The idea is to substantially unite the american know-how and genuine barbecue cuisine with mediterranean culinary mastery, all in one trendy place, "cool", to meet customers increasingly tired of the usual italian pizza.
The three cousins give life to the mark "BARBEQOOL", the new restaurants / trendy steak houses chain, and what better place then the extraordinary parthenopean city to organize the inauguration? Naples was a way to thank their families and in particular grandmother Mary, and at the same time, pay homage, with the dishes offered by Barbeqool, to the adoptive country that for years had coddled and pampered them; a way to transfer a bit of that beautiful and fortunate America in their land of origin. But also a way not to forget that not too long ago, an american bull had tasted an italian sauce and had been "conquered".