Al Gusto Coffee Company honored with Taste of Marana Standout award

MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Marana-based mobile coffee business, Al Gusto Coffee Company, which celebrates half a decade in business this year, recently received an award from Discover Marana.

The year is 2020, and Marana resident Aldo Boccaccio decided to make YouTube videos centered around his passion – coffee.

Those videos led him to take a leap of faith and start his own business during the pandemic.

“If I lost $500, well I had lost my job already, I had lost almost my house,” Boccaccio.

He started by selling coffee beans at local markets, but quickly expanded his business to selling his own coffee drinks.

His drinks were born through lots of experimenting, as he said something was missing in the coffee he had been drinking.

“I started buying coffees and trying to get to know exactly the flavors and the different roasts, the different countries, how they were grown,” Boccaccio explained. “So that kind of opened a huge fan of variety for me.”

At Al Gusto Coffee Company, Boccaccio serves a medium-dark roast coffee.

“What we do is use a specific roast for our coffee blend, it is composed of six different coffee beans from six different countries; usually, blends are from two countries.”

Now, five years later, the bet he made on himself is proving to be a success. His pop-ups led to a coffee cart, then a trailer and eventually a van in 2023.

His business recently received the Taste of Marana STANDOUT award, which recognizes great food businesses in the town.

“I think that’s the best part of any mom and pop business – is they’re putting their heart and soul into their product,” said Discover Marana’s Tourism and Marketing Manager, Stefanie Boe.

Nominations for the award come from the community.

“That itself means a lot to me, because it’s not only that we’re impacting the community, we’re impacting our friends, we’re impacting our neighbors,” Boccaccio said.

Do you know of a local food business in Marana deserving of the award? Nominate a business here.

“We need the people in the community to tell us when a restaurant has done a great job for them or they are a loyal customer and want their restaurant to be seen,” Boe said. “It is a tough time for restaurants, it’s a tough time in the economy, and so we have to get out there and support local if we really want local businesses to thrive.”