Ferlucci Knows What Keeps a Neighbourhood Café Going

Over the past decade, Ferlucci has become something of a household name in Villeray. Opened in 2015 by the community-minded, coffee-oriented, design-forward cousins Megan Verdone and Gianni Pezzullo, the cafe has watched the neighbourhood evolve influencer culture ascend, and experienced a pandemic—all without losing its unmistakable charm.

Now, as the cafe marks 11 years and Megan and Gianni prepare to open an expanded space, we sat down with them to talk about the early days, their creative collaboration , postcards and surprise visits from old customers, and how they’ve managed to stay true to themselves through it all.

What did your first few months on De Castelnau look like?

Gianni (G): A little less exciting than it does today, that's for sure. It was just a little rundown barbershop, and we had the shoeshine next door, but we didn't know many people on the street yet. We had this little hole in the wall that we were hoping we could turn into something nice for the neighbourhood.

It was definitely a grind. We had to work double shifts every day to make it happen.

Megan (M): It was actually really slow at first. It felt more like a sleepy town. Now it feels like there's a lot more life on the street. There were hours on end where not a single soul would walk in.

But we were also so lucky, because there were people that, from the day we opened, not knowing us at all, came to support us regularly. A lot of those people are still regulars to this day. People who had newborn babies now have, like, 10-year-old kids, or kids going to high school. It’s wild.

G: You see someone you haven't seen in so long, and their kid's in high school now. You're like, what?

M: Also, at first, we had a little magasin général area, where we were selling épicerie fine, some nice Italian grocery products.

G: We were importing olive oil, so that's kind of what contributed to this wall of retail. Slowly, slowly, that section kind of faded away. In a sense, people just wanted a place to sit.

M: I think what ended up really working is that people really loved our coffee. The focus became the coffee and vibe we were curating; a space where people loved to hang out and would come to study.

G: This all happened in the first few months. We started with one thing, and every day learned something new. It was a very evolving process in the first year.

How would you say that your focus has shifted over the last 10 years?

M: Once we found that sweet spot of where we exist, who we were for people in that first year, we just riffed on that for the rest of time. It was about coffee and community and figuring out how to make this space cater to what people wanted, while also honing the quality of the products that we're serving, what makes us unique, and what's individual to our brand.

The last ten years have been a coming-of-age era. We had that nut or that seedling, and we kept building on that theme. I don't think we’ve really strayed since.

G: We got a lot of regulars pretty quickly, so we focused on getting stability after that. What people tell us works for them also works for us. Our menu was a big focus for a long time, and it took time to get everything exact.

M: And we're still tweaking it. We started with just Gianni and me working behind the bar and one of our friends as our first employee. Now, we're a team of 10-11, so it also became a journey of creating a team and an environment where people like to work.

G: It's a long process, but I feel like after all, Megan and I never lost sight of what we've always wanted and why we did this in the first place. But it was definitely not obvious right away. You have to like adapt and—

M: You build organically. What does our staff need? What do we need? What does our community need? What do the clients ask for? It’s a balancing act of finding what works for everybody.

G: And how to make that something we could do every day without draining every possible resource.

Can you give us a glimpse into the nature of your collaboration?

G: We're a duo that's constantly collaborating, and feeding into each other's ideas or picking up after each other; it's a two-way street. Sometimes one of us is doing the brunt of it, sometimes it's the other person's turn to take charge.

M: We also each have the things that we really care deeply about. I think that we've always been in sync with our creative vision. If there's something that I'm kind of lukewarm about and I could go either way, and Gianni's really passionate about it being a certain way, then I'm like, ‘okay, I trust that it has to be this way.’ And vice versa, you know. I think, pretty lucky to have struck that balance and trust in each other's tastes. Both coming from creative backgrounds, we have a similar process and a shared taste. And, I mean, we grew up together, so it's very much like—

G: Exploring languages.

M: Exactly, exactly.

Why do you think Ferlucci has gathered the community it has around it?

M: I feel like it's the people. There must be something in what we're doing that they relate to and that they connect with. In the early days, we would almost only play VHS. People loved watching old movies with us. They connected on a taste level with what we were showing, and we were just showing parts of ourselves, our childhood, our upbringing, and things that are genuine to us.

We try to stay genuine to what we like and what we believe in, and I think people respond to that. It's not just like, ‘oh, we're trying to open a cafe to make as many espressos as we possibly can,’ you know what I mean?

G: We obviously need volume to survive. That business side—we take care of it, but it's not the highlight of our lives. We wanted the business to work so we could continue to live and enjoy the space more than we were about going into it for the money. It's been kind of an art project or performance installation, if you want to call it that, this whole time.

M: A living, breathing thing.

G: Everyone's welcome right off the bat. It wasn't cliquey or anything like that We had to find a way to make it so that everybody felt comfortable. A lot of places do this too. It's not like it's unique to us. It just worked out for us in a way.

Do you have a regular customer whose story has stuck with you?

M: Lately I've noticed a lot of customers that we haven't even seen in 4 or 5 years. They come back, and we're transported. It's as if almost no time has passed and their coffee order is the same. It makes you look at how things have changed but also how much has also stayed the same.