Isabella Santoro pairs experience with ambition

Isabella Santoro was born and raised in Washington before leaving town for higher education. One international relations degree and several years later, she returned home to rejoin the family business at Dodici’s.

“My first real job out of college was in the field that I got my degree, and it only took about a year and a half to realize that it wasn’t for me,” she said. “When I came back and got into the family business, it was sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, this is more my thing, working for myself, working for my family.’ It just seemed to sort of match my personality and my ambitions more.”

That ambition is beyond abundant. Santoro is now an experienced manager at the restaurant and is on track to open a new business of her own, called North Side Café, at the location formerly known as Winga’s Restaurant.

“We’ve known the Winga family for a long time,” she said. “When my husband and I voiced interest in that, they were really eager and were happy to sell to us. Even though I know a lot of people had been interested over the years, they were very cautious.”

Santoro said she planned to frame the new restaurant as a fast casual, breakfast and lunch establishment with the aesthetic of “a retro diner with a modern twist.”

The creative endeavor is very in character for Santoro, who said she was an ideas person, a quality that makes her comfortable in managing positions.

“I have, a lot of times, these moments where I can almost picture the light bulb going off above my head, and I have this drive to make it a reality,” she said. “With a regular 9-5 job, there’s different expectations, you can’t just follow what you think is a great idea.”

Her creative nature makes Santoro and her husband, Edward, an effective power couple.

“I’m kind of the visionary, and he’s the one that really figures out how this is actually going to happen, what we’re going to do to get things done,” she said.

The result is a motivated, community-oriented mindset the duo applies to everything they do.

“My husband and I, we did make the conscious decision to stay in Washington, we love it here, we love our community,” she said. “The question is, where you live, what is it that you want that town to have? And if it doesn’t have it, you create it … most people would just move somewhere where those things already exist, not us.”

Santoro said that drive for accomplishment was her greatest source of motivation.

“Even if I were somehow independently wealthy and I never had to work, I would have to work, just because I like that purpose,” she said. “You get this one specific life, and this is the time that we’ve got. Sometimes, I almost feel like I’m not doing enough or moving fast enough to take advantage of the time that I have, to do all the things that I want. That gets me out of bed every day.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com