For building a grocery empire that looks nothing like a grocery store.
Nicola Farinetti sucks down the last of his coffee, whirls his hand in the air, and hits my shoulder for the third time in minutes. The excitable 30-year-old CEO of Eataly U.S.A. is showing off the buzzing "piazza" of Eataly New York, his family's 50,000-square-foot Italian grocery market-cum-restaurant emporium-cum-enoteca slash bakery slash cheese shop. We're at the heart of the light-drenched store, where customers can hang out at a dozen marble countertops while scarfing down prosciutto, homemade mozzarella, and chilled oysters—or, should they be longer-term thinkers, wander off and shop for groceries. According to Farinetti, the piazza didn't exist in the weeks leading up to the market's opening in 2010. "But all of a sudden we realize," he says, and then, in his thick Italian accent, begins to break apart syllables for emphasis: "People-ah want-ta drink-ah wine!" Farinetti gestures around the open space, which is crowded with drinkers even early on a Tuesday afternoon. "It's unbelievable!"
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