The Christmas tree was decorated and lit, the Italian dining room awash in the color and cheer of the season. When Melanija Petrauskaite-Long arrived with her husband, Mark, fresh from a trip overseas, a tall, bearded Albanian greeted them with an unexpected gift.
“Welcome home!” bellowed Mare e Monte owner Prince Blakaj, extending his arms to embrace the couple. “How was your trip to Portugal?”
As the Longs settled into their table, Blakaj presented them with a complimentary bottle of Portuguese wine.
The gesture left the couple flabbergasted. Blakaj not only remembered the country they’d visited, he’d selected a crisp white wine from one of its vineyards, a bottle of Graca da Pedra Alvarinho, to celebrate their return.
“They serve great food,” Petrauskaite-Long said. “But every time, I go back for the experience. The warm welcome hug from Prince. The super attentive staff. Your glass of wine is never empty. You’re always being checked on. I brought a party of eight with my husband and they gave us a bottle of wine. I don’t think another restaurant would have done that.”
Mare e Monte delivers the unexpected as a matter of routine. A guest once showed up to find her favorite dish – eggplant parmigiana – missing from the menu. Rather than explain that his seasonal menu had changed, Blakaj rushed to H-E-B, bought eggplants and told the kitchen to prepare the order.
On another occasion, Blakaj invited a child to the kitchen to give his parents time to be alone. He asked the youngster, “What would you like to eat?” The boy said, “A Happy Meal.” To the astonishment of everyone at the table, Blakaj went to McDonald’s and returned with the order.
“We try to provide unreasonable hospitality,” Blakaj said. “Our bible is the book ‘Unreasonable Hospitality.’”
Blakaj provides a copy of the New York Times bestseller to each of his 47 employees. In daily staff meetings, he encourages servers to put into practice the principles of the book, which is subtitled, “The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect.”
Through a series of narrative snapshots, Unreasonable Hospitality explains the magic beyond the cuisine of New York City’s Eleven Madison Park, a three Michelin star destination that became the world’s No. 1 restaurant in 2017.
Author Will Guidara, the former co-owner, recalled overhearing a table of guests raving about their culinary adventures in the city. Their one regret was not eating a famous, street hot dog.
Guidara left to buy one from a street cart. He told Daniel Humm, a multitime, James Beard-winning chef, to plate it. Humm resisted. Guidara persisted.
When the hot dog was served with artistic swirls of ketchup and mustard and with perfect quenelles of sauerkraut and relish, the guests, according to Guidara, “freaked out.”
On another occasion, a couple celebrating an anniversary mentioned where they were staying. When the couple returned to their hotel room, they discovered a bottle of Champagne from the restaurant, along with a note thanking them for their visit.
Unreasonable hospitality is built on an overlooked industry principle: Service is black and white. Hospitality is color.
“Black and white means you’re doing your job with competence and efficiency,” Guidara writes. “Color means you make people feel great about the job you’re doing.”
Mare e Monte aims for color. The restaurant receives glowing reviews for its cuisine — Texas Monthly gave it three stars — but guests come back for more than the carciofi al tartufo and lobster ravioli. They return for above-and-beyond hospitality.
“My wife and I go several times a month,” Christopher McQuade said. “It’s not just about the food. It’s the experience itself.”
McQuade’s wife broke her leg a year ago, which made it difficult for her to stand in the long line outside Mare e Monte. When Blakaj learned of the couple’s predicament, he gave the McQuade’s his private parking spot behind the restaurant and told them to enter through the back door.
“He said, ‘Just take it. It’s there for you,’” McQuade said. “My wife’s like, ‘Wow. That’s just amazing.’”
Humble beginnings
Mounted on a wood-paneled restaurant wall is a black and white sign with a date: 1999. The year triggers deep emotion and memories: fighter jets, bombings, war.
On March 24, 1999, the U.S. and NATO launched a massive air campaign to halt a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. Seventy-eight days later, the strikes ended when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević agreed to withdraw his forces from the province.
A 6-year-old Albanian boy who’d fled his home in war-torn Kosovo regarded U.S. soldiers as heroes. They’d given him and his family a gift. “American bombs meant freedom,” Blakaj said. “The first memory of my life was war.”
A dream formed. Almost 20 years later, Blakaj crossed the Atlantic and began bussing tables in New York City. With aspirations of starting his own restaurant, Blakaj moved to Texas, warmed and enchanted by a metropolis known as Military City, USA.
He opened a restaurant with 22 tables in April 2024 and named it after the topography and culture of his youth. More than 800 peaks are scattered throughout his native Kosovo. Its neighbor, Albania, sits directly across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. Mare e Monte is Italian for “sea and mountain.”
A surge of business
Within three days after opening, guests filled nearly every table for lunch and dinner. Blakaj credits a glowing post from the San Antonio Restaurants Facebook Group. Positive reviews drew patrons to Mare e Monte. Unexpected hospitality kept them coming back.
Needing help for the surge of business, Blakaj called a cousin, Zerina Shatri, in New York City. Also a native of Kosovo, Shatri had played basketball at Our Lady of the Lake University while earning a degree in kinesiology. Returning to San Antonio to work for Blakaj — “He’s like a big brother,” she said — felt like coming home.
Shatri read “Unreasonable Hospitality,” observed her cousin at work and became a quick study. A guest dropped a fork, she replaced it within seconds. A napkin fell to the floor, she delivered a new one before anyone knew it was missing.
“Prince created this culture,” Shatri said. “He’s a great example of leadership. We’ve seen him make pizza for a kid from scratch, even though we don’t have pizza on the menu. When our espresso machine was down, he went and bought an espresso coffee for a guest.”
A self-professed “book geek,” Blakaj found “Unreasonable Hospitality” on a shelf at Barnes & Noble four years ago. At the time, he was waiting tables at Macelleria Italian Steakhouse, a since-closed Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant in Pelham, New York.
The book transformed his thinking about customer service. Blakaj brought those lessons to Mare e Monte. After opening the restaurant, he read “Setting the Table” by Danny Meyer, the original owner of Eleven of Madison Park and a former partner of Guidara. That New York Times bestseller provided more enlightenment on hospitality.
Mare e Monte’s reputation spread quickly. Blakaj refused to take reservations because he didn’t want diners to feel rushed. So what should he do about the lengthening lines forming outside his restaurant?
The art of hospitality
“I usually find all my solutions in books,” he said.
In that spirit, Blakaj brought the guests inside and gave them a complimentary glass of wine — and sometimes an appetizer — while they waited.
“Usually, restaurants only care about the part when you’re inside,” he said. “We help people to come out of their cars, show them where to park, hold the door open. We want to make every aspect of their stay as pleasant as possible.”
Once seated, the unexpected begins. A server notices a half-empty wine glass and fills it. A waiter recognizes a pasta dish that looks a tad dry and appears with extra sauce.
When Blakaj spots a table with one or two children, he asks if they’d like a tour. While parents visit, he takes them to the kitchen, shows them around and asks what they’d like to eat.
Whatever the request, Blakaj tries to fulfill it on the spot. Spaghetti and meatballs? Coming right up. An item off the menu? Blakaj finds a way to deliver.
“We try to replicate all their favorites,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll go to Chick-fil-A and bring something back.”
Children generate little income for restaurants like Mare e Monte. That truth aside, Blakaj recognizes their value.
“I want to be that kind of restaurant where kids grow up with us and start waiting tables for us and bus for us when they go to college,” he said. “I want to be that family place where people feel good and feel seen and families grow up with us.”
Fundraising for a guest
Juan and Kristin Chávez and their daughter Iris visited Mare e Monte soon after it opened. The family became regulars and bonded with Blakaj.
When Iris was diagnosed at age 7 with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer found in children, Blakaj launched a fundraiser. His pastry chef created an Iris pumpkin pound cake for $10, with 100% of the proceeds going to the family.
“We were just shocked by his generosity,” said Kristin Chávez, a Harlan High School teacher who took a leave of absence to care for her daughter. “It was truly amazing for him to do that, without any hesitation.”
To build awareness, Mare e Monte posted Iris’s story on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, which claim nearly 40,000 combined followers, and encouraged people to buy a dessert. A GoFundMe account has raised $17,595. The restaurant fundraiser ends on Sunday.
“I don’t have a final number yet on how much has been raised, but it’s going to be a tremendous help,” Kristin Chávez said. “Prince treats you like family. He says, ‘If you need a meal, call us and we will deliver it to you guys.’ That’s such a huge help because when my kid is sick, cooking is the last thing on my mind.”
A child battling cancer. Parents struggling to pay bills. No bestseller taught Blakaj how to serve customers in crisis. He responds instinctively, with kindness and compassion, with a spirit that could write its own book.
The Heart of Hospitality.
