Natalia Lepore Hagan: So You Want to Go Culinary School and Change Your Life?

In this episode of So You Want to Run a Restaurant, we sit down with Natalia Lepore Hagan, founder of Midnight Pasta Philadelphia, an immersive, experience-driven pasta concept redefining what dining can be.Midnight Pasta isn’t a traditional restaurant, it’s a ticketed pasta-making experience where guests arrive for cocktails, jump into a high-energy, hands-on pasta class, and then gather for a five-course, family-style dinner made from the pasta they create themselves. It’s part dinner, part performance, and part community event.Natalia shares her journey from growing up in a big Italian-American family to performing on Broadway, and how theater, music, movement, and storytelling are intentionally built into every Midnight Pasta experience. She opens up about how the pandemic shutdown of Broadway led her back to pasta-making, enrolling in culinary school, and launching Midnight Pasta - not to fit into a traditional restaurant model, but to create something entirely new.Natalia also shares her perspective on chefs, creators, and influencer partnerships, and why Midnight Pasta operates outside the traditional restaurant category.In this episode, we cover:Building an immersive dining experience outside the restaurant modelPivoting careers and launching during the pandemicGoing viral without losing control of your brandScaling experiential hospitality without sacrificing authenticity📍 Midnight Pasta - Philadelphia, PA🍝 Immersive pasta-making experience🎭 Broadway-inspired dining🌱 Hyper-local, seasonal, community-driven⭐ This show is brought to you by Back of House.io, the foodservice industry’s most trusted resource for restaurant technology. Learn more at https://backofhouse.io/⭐ Season 5 is proudly sponsored by RestauRent, the no-fee booking platform helping restaurants book private and group events. Try it risk-free with 3 free months at https://bit.ly/soyouwanttorestaurent⭐ Follow UsPodcast: https://linktr.ee/soyouwanttorunarestaurantClaudia: https://www.instagram.com/claudia.saric/Spencer: https://www.instagram.com/restaurantspenny/