The Daily Grind owner Georgianne Gennette “Gigi” Zavaglia opened her first restaurant after traveling the world.

Now the Mount Pleasant resident is bringing the flavors of Italy to Tavola Gigi’s, 437 S. Mission St.

Zavaglia closed the Daily Grind to open Tavola Gigi’s, which means GiGi’s Table in Italian, today to fulfill her love of Italian food and culture.

“We’ve just become such a fast food society and people have … forgotten to just savor and relax,” she said.

At the Daily Grind, which closed Friday, Zavaglia filled her customer’s requests for traditional Italian dishes she learned from her husband Joe’s Italian family and her own interest in Italian cuisine.

But her start was not in cuisine.

Zavaglia worked in international medical recruiting before she decided to settle down in Mount Pleasant.

“I wanted to come back to something that was a little more familiar than living in Houston and traveling the world,” Zavaglia said.

Customer demand

Zavaglia and her mom got lost while looking for somewhere to move in Michigan and stumbled across Mount Pleasant. Zavaglia moved here to raise her family.

She opened the Daily Grind hoping to start the business, then go back to international recruiting, but that never happened.

People came in requesting the store expand into dinners and catering.

“It just kept snowballing,” Zavaglia said. “It’s really our customers that started it.”

Becky Warren, Tavola Gigi’s pastry chef, worked for Zavaglia three years ago at The Daily Grind and jumped at the chance to return.

“It was so fun and I met so many cool people,” Warren said. “It was my favorite job.”

Andy Amsdill, the night cook, also is excited at the opportunity to work for Zavaglia.

“They’re good people — they know about business,” Amsdill said. “It was just nice to see good people who cared about their customers.”

E-mail the author: Maryellen Tighe