Against The Odds: Ivo Santos Lives His Dream With Bella's Pizza & Grill

You'll spot the owner of right away. Donning his colorful chef hat, Ivo Santos flies between the fryers to the ovens before carefully sliding pizzas, subs and salads into delivery boxes.

The outgoing Santos is quick with a warm welcome to customers, while staying on top of the kitchen hustle.

He works with determined confidence, despite a few road blocks, literal and otherwise.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Santos moved with his family to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.It was 2000 and Santos was a 17-year-old kid with no cooking experience and a desire to work in a restaurant. He landed his first job as a line cook at the New England chain, Ninety Nine Restaurants & Pubs.

Santos told his potential employer, "I have no experience. I had no chance to go to college. I'm gonna do everything I can to learn."

Whether it was Santos' enthusiasm or a start-up restaurant's desperate need for cooks, the manager hired him immediately. His eagerness to learn paid off. Santos worked there ten years.

Since then, Santos has worked at popular restaurants like Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Carabba's.

The young kid's passion turned into a realization and a dream.

"I was working to make money. I thought instead of making the owner rich, I wanted to make myself a living," Santos said.

Santos met his wife, Michelle, at the Ninety Nine, where she worked as a bartender and kitchen supervisor. They opened Bella's on May 29, 2010.

Their menu serves a variety of pizza, wings, pasta, calzones, specialty sandwiches, salads and desserts. On Fridays, they offer fish and chips.

His menu choices were initially met with skepticism from those in the restaurant business.

Boneless chicken wings? That's a northern preference, they said.

"Many people make boneless chicken wings by using frozen chicken, already breaded. Then fry it and pour sauce on it," Santos said.

"We use real chicken, chicken tenderloins. We hand-cut them. We hand-bread them. People got to try it [boneless wings], and they got attached to it."

Brazilian pizza with boiled egg? People won't like the egg, they said.

That's a childhood dish, said Santos, who is half-Portuguese, half-Italian. The boiled egg is sliced and blended with ham, onion, sliced tomato, black olives and oregano.

Too many menu choices, said the critics.

"When I chose my menu, I put the most popular kinds of food," Santos said.

"We have people addicted to our food. We have customers who call every day, seven days a week, and order the same thing."

Bella's, named after their young daughter Isabella, has a loyal following with new customers finding them every week.

That's impressive, especially when you consider the traffic problems on Belcher Road: first the road construction, then the water main break last December.

"Established businesses here closed after that," Santos said.

Bella's now has eight employees: cooks, waitresses and delivery drivers. Another achievement for a restaurant is it's a couple months shy of its first anniversary.

After working tirelessly seven days a week for the last eight months, Santos decided he needed more time with family. A couple of months ago, they decided to close the restaurant on Sundays.

"We go to church, go to the beach, visit my family in Tampa," Santos said.

Once a month, they take an entire weekend off. Scheduling a weekend off sounds risky to a growing restaurant, but Santos doesn't see it that way.

"You put your priorities. You have to live your life, too," Santos said.

Santos knows it's difficult to balance the priorities of a new restaurant and the needs of a young family, but it's not impossible.

He continues to work toward new goals and dreams. He hopes to open Bella's as a seasonal restaurant in Massachusetts, where he'd work summers in New England and work winters in Florida.

That's not the final dream for his restaurant.

"Hopefully, this will be a chain one day," he said.

A look at the Menu

Pizza

Four cheese: mozzarella, provolone, cheddar and ricotta

Meaty: pepperoni, sausage, bacon, hamburger, ham

BBQ: crispy buffalo chicken, bleu cheese crumbles

Philly cheese steak: steak, onion, pepper, mushroom

Brazilian: Ham, egg, onion, tomato, black olives, oregano

Wings and Starters

Boneless chicken wings; bone-in chicken wings, fried ravoli, jalapeno poppers, coconut shrimp, loaded fries, garlic knots, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, chicken quesadillas

Sandwiches (served with fries, coleslaw, vegetable of the day)

Hamburger, cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger, BLT, hot dog, grilled cheese, meatball sub or wrap, philly steak wrap or sub, chicken parmesan wrap

Pasta

Shrimp scampi, spaghetti with meatballs, chicken parm, fettucini alfredo, lasagna

is located at 1385 Belcher Road South, Largo, FL. 33771. For information or take-out orders, call 727-474-3770.