Resilience and authenticity are crucial for success in the competitive hospitality industry, according to local restaurateur and entrepreneur, Paul Russo. And a bit of hands-on help from the family isn’t amiss either, it would seem.
Russo, whose mother hails from Abruzzo, Italy, and whose father, born in the United States, has roots in Abruzzo, Rome and Naples, is the co-owner of TVB by: Pax Romana, the highly-regarded pizza and pasta restaurant in downtown White Plains. (TVB is Italian text-talk for Ti voglio bene, or “I love you.”)
Russo also co-owns the stylish Crema Caffè, a café/restaurant in Eastchester. Both establishments reflect what Russo describes as the “nice balance” of his Italian-American upbringing—his “super American side and super Italian side,” as he articulated in a recent conversation with the Westfair Business Journal.
Growing up in Tarrytown, Russo attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains. But long before that, he had realized, remarkably, that he wanted to be in the hospitality industry. “At the tender age of 4 or 5, my parents took my brother and me to Disney World, and I was captivated by the hotels and restaurants there. I developed a fascination with hospitality,” he recalled.
Unlike many Italian families that pass down restaurant ownership through generations, Russo had no familial connections to the business. He described his father as a blue-collar worker—a “renaissance man” skilled in building and fixing but not a hospitality professional. His mother, a native Italian speaker, is “very good with numbers,” he added.
Starting work at age 12 and entering the industry at 17, Russo began his career at the now-defunct Castle on the Hudson in Tarrytown, where he gained valuable experience over four years.
He later pursued a degree in hotel and restaurant management at Johnson & Wales University. However, by the time he graduated, the economy was struggling. The Castle’s executive chef and Russo’s mentor, David Havilland (now the executive chef at the Harvard Club in Manhattan), took him under his wing.
“He taught me a lot and made me cry a lot, too,” Russo recollected. “But you need that.”
At just 22, Russo became the food and beverage director at a private golf club in Rockland County but promised himself he wouldn’t move again until he could establish a place of their own.
With his best, friend, who also became his business partner, Russo launched Pax Romana in February 2016 on East Post Road in White Plains.
But after a year of operation, an unexpected “issue” forced the partners to vacate the premises.
“At the time, it felt devastating,” Russo acknowledged. “But circumstances don’t dictate outcomes, so there was no looking back. What seemed like the worst thing ever turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.”
Soon, the pair were back in business, in a new location just five doors down from their original venue.
In a reversal of the more normal practice of children going into their parents’ business, Russo’s mother has shown she is not only “good with numbers,” but also rather an asset in the restaurant kitchen. Along with Russo’s business partner’s mother, she makes Pax Romana’s pasta fresh each day from scratch. (“You just missed the two of them, about 10 minutes ago,” Russo told the Journal on the morning we met.)
Pax Romana’s pizzas, meanwhile, are Roman-style, made with highly-prized DiMarco pinsa flour, an exceptional product based on wheat, rice and soy, which gives the pinsa its unique mix of crispness and softness. Russo said he was proud to have been the first restaurateur to use the premium flour, which is imported from Rome – New York, that is.In mid-2025, with a second business partner, Dominick Montemurro, Russo opened Crema Caffè in Eastchester. An expansion into the adjacent premises is set to begin shortly, and he is particularly pleased that the existing café can remain open during construction. Once complete, he said it will simply require a wall to be knocked down to merge the two.
With both establishments operating successfully, Russo feels content but remains open to new venues and opportunities. “There’s a hamster wheel constantly running in your mind,” was how he put it.
He has also noticed that the best opportunities often “pop up out of nowhere.”
“When you put in the time and effort, doors tend to open, and it’s up to you to decide which ones to walk through.”
