I sit down with Giuseppe Lombardi — known to friends as Pepo — founder of Banco, a portable cocktail station based in Lecce, in Italy's Puglia region. From competitive sailing as a teenager to hospitality school in Switzerland to a career that took him through Michelin-starred kitchens, luxury hotel bars in Dubai, Prague, Paris, London and Singapore, Pepo has spent over a decade building the experience he's now channeling into his own venue.

Pepo walks through the unconventional path he's taken to entrepreneurship, starting mobile rather than diving straight into a lease, the reasoning behind his investment structure, and what it actually takes (financially and bureaucratically) to open a venue in an Italian historic center. He gets candid about the pressure of using family money, the mentors who shaped his approach to leadership, and the vision he's building for a place that isn't about the drink list, it's about how people feel when they walk in.

Expect a deep dive into Italian hospitality bureaucracy that will make you grateful for wherever you're opening your bar, a wildly specific breakdown of what a commercial kitchen actually requires by law, and a few hard-won lessons about the gap between working for someone else and building something of your own.