When Life Gives You Tomatoes, Make Sauce!
Meet husband and wife chef duo, Kristina and AJ Sankofa, the owners of the wildly popular ESO Artisanal Pasta restaurant in Charlotte, NC, whose childhoods were sharp in contrast: She grew up in the restaurant business in Ukraine watching her parents run the first bakery in her small town and later a restaurant, while AJ grew up in Charlotte “eating chicken nuggets and pizza rolls,” Kristina jokes. Ironically, AJ went on to spend two years in Italy earning a culinary degree while working in a Michelin Star restaurant.
Ingenuity and Hard Work Pays Off
The couple met in 2019 while working in a restaurant in New York City, and from there, the experiences and accolades began piling up. They moved to New Jersey during the pandemic and started baking cakes and pies for delivery. When their business grew exponentially, they decided to prepare handmade pastas and sauces which were packaged frozen for customers to prepare at home. In July 2020, ESO Artisanal Pasta was born, and they ran it out of The Artist Baker in Morristown, NJ. “It really took off, and we had 1,500 followers on Instagram overnight,” she said. Today, they have more than 33,000 followers.
In late 2023, they shuttered their operation in NJ and embarked on their two-year journey to open up their own restaurant in Charlotte, just 15 minutes from AJ’s childhood home.
“As Seen on TV”
The critically acclaimed Food Network reached out to the chefs in 2022 and invited them to be a part of the show, “The Great Food Truck Race,” which they won third place, and in 2023, AJ battled for second place on the show, “Chopped.” The attention they received from these shows catapulted them to the next level, and it’s been non-stop ever since with ESO Artisanal Pasta opening in Charlotte in August 2025. It quickly became a 24/7 operation to keep up with demand, with night, morning, and dinner crews.
What inspired you to get into foodservice?
“From a young child watching my parents run a bakery and a restaurant, I always knew I was going to be in the restaurant industry.”
What do you love about your business?
“I love the fact that I get to work alongside my husband. Everything we do, we do with love. We care about our ingredients, our customers, and our employees. This is our baby. We’re growing with it, and it’s growing with us.”
“We source our ingredients from Italy and buy the best ingredients we can possibly have, and we don’t cut corners. The pasta we make is what you would expect to get in a fine dining restaurant in Italy, but we’re in a casual environment at a lower price. Our customers appreciate that.”
The Origins of the Name “ESO Artisanal Pasta”
People often ask what “ESO” means. “It’s a celebratory term in Spanish that AJ heard when he worked with Latinos in his first restaurant job. When things were running smoothly and they were having a good day, they would shout, ‘Eso!’ but formally, it means ‘that’ or ‘that thing’ in Spanish. We just wanted something catchy.”
What's the most interesting/oddest/coolest thing to happen to your business?
“Back in 2020 when we were in New Jersey, we applied for a grant for black-owned businesses from the New York Jets football team and then completely forgot about it. Months later, we were shocked to find out we had been chosen from thousands of applicants! At the time, we had just reopened our business after parting ways with a partner, and this grant gave us the boost we needed to get back on our feet.”
What was the biggest business challenge you overcame?
“Our biggest challenge was moving our business from one state to another and completely changing our concept. We started out as a small pasta shop in New Jersey, moving everything to North Carolina and opening our very first restaurant. We flew back and forth for two years. It was a complete build-out; fully designing our dream kitchen with every piece of equipment.”
What Cambro products help make your business work?
“I can’t imagine our operation without our 22 quarts and four-quart Cambros. We use them to store huge batches of sauces and grated cheeses that we keep in the walk-in. We make each sauce twice a week and there’s 10 sauces. Four 22 quarts are used in less than four days, and we use the four quarts on the actual cooking line, filling them multiple times. But my favorite has to be the little Cambro water cup, a fun collaboration with Tilit; I use it every single day!”
Author: Cynthia Connally is the Digital Communications Manager at Cambro.
