Kisses From Italy

Kisses From Italy

Kisses From Italy was founded in 2013 by Claudio Ferri and Michele Di Turi, who built the concept around a specific product thesis: that Italian street-food formats — focaccia sandwiches, calzones, stuffed rice balls — could be standardized and scaled in the US market the way burritos and bao buns had been a decade earlier. The founding duo incorporated in Florida and began opening corporate locations in Broward County before expanding into franchising. As a small-cap OTC-traded entity, the company occupies an unusual regulatory position, filing quarterly disclosures that make its unit economics and balance sheet publicly visible in a segment where most peers are privately held. The menu is built around grab-and-go Italian baked goods and sandwiches with a stated focus on imported ingredients and open-kitchen formats. Asset-class mix is concentrated in single-unit operating real estate and franchise licensing agreements. The company has pursued a dual growth engine: company-owned stores that prove the unit model in new markets, and a franchise development program targeting multi-unit operators in the Northeast corridor. Geographic footprint includes Florida, New York, and Massachusetts. In 2021, the company announced a franchising push into the New York tri-state area, positioning the brand for denser urban trade areas. The team operates leanly from a Fort Lauderdale headquarters. Claudo Ferri serves as CEO, and Michele Di Turi as CFO, maintaining the founding partnership's control over both kitchen operations and financial reporting. In September 2023, the company announced a rebranding initiative and updated franchise disclosure documents to support expansion in suburban markets. The company maintains an active OTC ticker (KITL) and files with the SEC, which is atypical for a restaurant group of its size and gives limited partners — in this case, public shareholders — a quarterly window into cash flows and liabilities. The structural differentiator is the public-company transparency imposed on a sub-scale franchisor. Most restaurant concepts at 15–25 units are privately held, making their royalty streams, churn rates, and unit-level margins opaque. Kisses From Italy files quarterly reports, giving potential franchisees and competitors alike a real-time view of corporate overhead, same-store trends, and balance-sheet health — a governance feature that functions as both a marketing signal to prospective franchise operators and a source of volatility for the thinly traded equity.