Michael Carosello, owner of Carosello Pasta, says that he signed his lease in March 2021 and “optimistically—or perhaps naively—we assumed that the crisis would be resolved in a matter of weeks or a few short months and we’d open fairly quickly.”
Michael Carosello’s first pasta sales were at his wife Chelsea Lisiecki’s table at the Dexter Farmer’s Market. Photo by J. Adrian Wylie
Permit delays and labor shortages stretched that timeline to more than a year, but the pastificio (pasta factory) and market finally opened in April 2022. And “on the upside, all of that time waiting allowed us to really think about how we can best serve our community and make connections with local producers,” he says.
After graduating from high school in St. Louis, Carosello moved to Italy to attend culinary school. He worked in kitchens in Italy and the United States and in various levels of management at a large, organic grocer before striking out on his own.
He began modestly, making pasta in his kitchen and bringing his creations to his wife’s table at the Dexter Farmer’s Market (his wife, Chelsea Lisiecki, owns Sideoats Farm & Native Nursery in Pinckney). The demand was so enormous, Carosello says, “that we couldn’t keep up … we were attending three, four farm markets a week while still operating out of our home.”
Now that the store is open, “things are going great—better than we ever expected,” Carosello enthuses. Customers can select from fresh or dried pasta made on site as well as pantry staples and other specialty items. Display cases in the bright, welcoming shop feature multiple kinds of freshly made pasta including fusilli, bucatini and rigatoni, along with locally made goods such as Westwind Mills flours, Raterman bread, Michigan-grown dried beans, seed packets from Nature & Nurture, and spaghetti sauce from The Italian Cooks.
Carosello says that about 75 percent of the products in the store are made in Michigan with the rest coming from other states or Italy. The idea is to offer “a selection of items to make a simple but excellent dish at home without having to make an additional stop.”
“We’re just so happy to finally be open,” he says. “All that waiting and stress already feels like a lifetime ago. We’re full steam ahead and utterly blown away by the support from our community thus far!”
Carosello Pasta, 3126 Broad St. (734) 253–2315. Thurs. & Fri. 11 a.m.–7 p.m., Sat. & Sun. 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Closed Mon.–Wed. carosellopasta.com
