Danielle Mercuri was a broke mother of three in her 20s when she took a job that eventually launched her into the forefront of the Syracuse restaurant scene.
But hers isn’t a typical big break story.
Instead, 14 years before she would open her fourth Syracuse restaurant, Mercuri worked as a waitress at the Rise N Shine Diner on Thompson Road in Syracuse.
“At the time, I was super in need of a job,” Mercuri said. “I’m talking totally destitute, no more savings, nothing and I have three kids, so I started waitressing.”
It was her second stint at a restaurant. The first was when she was 14 working at Grimaldi’s in Carrier Circle, where her mother worked as the banquet manager. She stayed until she was 23, then decided she needed a break.
"I started serving, and it was great money for a kid my age,” she said.
And, as fate would have it, Mercuri now owns those two locations – Grimaldi’s and the Thompson Road diner – running two different restaurants out of each.
At the original Rise N Shine Diner, Mercuri worked her way up to become the manager, making changes to improve the look, she said. It was there that she learned about operating a restaurant.
“When I started, it was a little hole in the wall, run-down diner so I thought we could spruce things up,” Mercuri said.
The owner, Peter Hennessey, then became ill with leukemia. When Hennessey became too sick to run the restaurant, she said he signed it over to her making her the new owner in 2011.
The Rise N Shine location on Thompson Road often had hours long waits for people hoping to be served boozy milkshakes, mimosa flights or their signature home fries with a “secret one-of-a-kind spice.”
In August 2019, she built on that success and opened a second diner location in the Westcott neighborhood. Turns out, a few months later, it wasn’t the best time to be operating two restaurants when the COVID-19 pandemic brought business to a halt.
“We were juggling the two, which would have been easy if COVID didn’t happen, but we had to shut down and go to take-out,” Mercuri said. “It was not easy for the Thompson Road location to take that on.”
With the Thompson Road location significantly smaller than the Westcott restaurant coupled with the social-distancing restrictions, they could only serve about 10 people at a time, which was not profitable, Mercuri said.
Like many restaurant owners during the pandemic, Mercuri had a choice to make.
“We decided we were going to shut it down and just stay open in the Westcott location, but I didn’t want to break the lease and let it go completely because I had such ties to it,” Mercuri said.
That’s when the idea for Loded struck.
“We came up with the concept of making it more take-out friendly, fast but still part of our brand with really funky and creative food,” she said.
For example, Loded does not serve typical burgers. Instead, the burgers incorporate a theme from other popular dishes like lobster, birria tacos and the upstate-famous garbage plate. Another popular menu item is the chipotle French toast chicken bacon waffle sandwich — chicken tenders with a chipotle French toast sauce on a sweet waffle bun.
Not long after Loded opened in April 2021, her restaurant career started to come full circle. Rita Grimaldi, who owned the Italian eatery Mercuri first worked at, came calling looking to sell the business to her.
And that’s when the concept of Mercuri’s newest project, Lalalu, started to take shape.
“This was a huge project because we had to completely revamp this,” Mercuri said while sitting in Lalalu on a recent morning.
While still keeping the Italian theme, Mercuri and her team transformed the space from traditional family-style restaurant to an extravagant and colorful space.
If she thought running two restaurants and opening a third was enough, she would soon have more on her plate.
Fellow Westcott business owners, Jesse Daino and Adam Williams, who own Recess Coffee, came to her in 2022 with another space on the table. Their deli, Cure, which was in Westcott as well, closed, but they had a lease and equipment – they just needed someone to fill it.
They insisted that Mercuri take over the space saying her creativity would lead to something special there, she recalled.
So, she came up with the concept of something that is unlike anything else in this landlocked city, and like Loded, is fast and casual. Lobster Babe opened in November, serving up creative takes on the classic lobster roll, macaroni and cheese and bisque.
“We thought it was the best concept for the neighborhood,” Williams said. “They’re in a growth mode so it just seemed like the right fit.”
Williams said Mercuri joining the Westcott neighborhood has helped it flourish.
“There are people who have thrived there for many years, but it’s just another look,” Williams said. “I think more people in any area is better, and it elevates the vibe in the neighborhood to have busy, bustling spots.
“She is part of a new class of restaurant entrepreneurs and it’s really exciting that there is some new food stuff happening in town to complement some of the classics.”
The brand that Mercuri has created for her restaurants is colorful, fun and bright. She said she likes to create experiences for diners.
“What I expect out of all of the restaurants, and I know we all do is that you walk into a place where you are always somewhere else, you’re never here in Syracuse,” she said.
The creative dishes at all four restaurants — like a hamburger topped with pork belly and the tin can breakfast pierogies (think a stack of breakfast favorites smashed together) at Rise N Shine — are partially her constructions, Mercuri said, but she said the menus at each place are a group effort.
Lalalu’s head chef, Filippo Di Paola, helped her create the menu for the Italian restaurant. Di Paola lived in Italy until seven years ago when he came to the United States.
“Ultimately everything I love is for everyone to enjoy having this unique, artistic, playful and yummy food so I think it is a collective thing,” Mercuri said. “Chef Filippo is just as crazy as I am, so we keep pulling out some funky things.”
The menu at Lalalu is authentic Italian with a creative twist on how it is served. They serve orecchiette alla vodka – homemade pasta with vodka sauce – out of a large cocktail glass. Or, their cacio e pepe in a wheel where the server lights the cheese wheel on fire next to the table to prepare the dish.
After four new – and unique – restaurants in as many years, Mercuri isn’t done. She said she is looking to relocate Loded that will include a bar and hoping to find a second location for Rise N Shine.
“We are working on our brand, DD Restaurants,” Mercuri said. “Structuring all of our restaurants on building on each one to be the best experiences.”
With Mercuri’s background, diners can continue to expect creativity with the décor and menu.
“I’ve always wanted to be in the art world,” she said. “That was something back when I was a kid that I thought I was going to be a fashion designer, or an artist and I dabbled in it a little bit, but everyone always says I did it with food instead.”