August Cardona
Mr. Cardona began his career in the Finance sector with Zacks Investment Research in Chicago. After 16-months, Mr. Cardona was made Associate Vice President. Having an undeniable connection to the hospitality industry and a passion for food and wine, Mr. Cardona decided to leave his career in Finance early and return home to Albany, NY to assist his father and two brothers with the expansion of Cardona's Market, his family's Italian specialty store that was founded in 1945.
After leading a successful re-branding and expansion of the family business, Mr. Cardona moved to New York City to pursue a career in wine, first landing at Italian Wine Merchants ("IWM") where he spent four years working closely with IWM founding partner Sergio Esposito. Mr. Cardona held a number of different positions with IWM including Sales Manager, Director of Operations and Director of International Sales. Mr. Cardona spearheaded several Marketing and Business Development initiatives at IWM, most notably the build-out of IWM's Bottle Asset Fund and the opening IWM's first international office in Hong Kong.
While working in full time capacity at IWM, Mr. Cardona opened his first restaurant, dell'anima, in October of 2007 with partners Joe Campanale and Gabe and Katherine Thompson. Following the immediate success of dell'anima, the team decided to open their second restaurant, L'Artusi, in December of 2008. It was shortly after the opening of L'Artusi that August left Italian Wine Merchants to focus solely on the development of his own company with a focus on the Food, Beverage & Hospitality industry. With the formation of Epicurean Capital and Epicurean Management Company ("EMCo."), Mr. Cardona was able to solidify both a flexible pool of dedicated capital for new business initiatives and the foundation of an experienced management team to successfully operate and brand existing and future businesses.
Mr. Cardona has since partnered with long time industry veteran Ron Levine (President of EMCo.) in September of 2009, adding invaluable experience to the organization. In May 2010, together with partners Campanale, the Thompsons, and Director of Operations Kevin Garry, the team opened Anfora, a wine bar specialized in natural and amphora-aged wines.
Mr. Cardona holds a B.S. in Business Management from Cornell University, with a concentration in Food Marketing. Mr. Cardona sits on the board of Wellness In The Schools, and is actively committed to an initiative to develop a curriculum focused on expanding the perspective of the world's children, not the least of which is his 9-year-old daughter, Kailey.