Marketing Gimmicks

Alain Rondelli Seeks X-Rated Comeback

Photo: Courtesy Rondelli Deli

Common knowledge says sex sells, so if you call it a “spank me” instead of a sandwich, or a “menage a trois” instead of a salad, you’ll make a bundle, right? This is the theory on which former fine-dining chef Alain Rondelli is basing his future success. The one-time owner of a four-star eponymous restaurant that preceded Clementine on Clement Street, Rondelli has been out of the restaurant game for 10 years but is getting back into it with a takeout food operation called Rondelli Deli, which he hopes to license to existing businesses who would theoretically sell his sex-themed box lunches all over town. “I believe there is a huge similarity in the pleasure that you receive from food and the pleasure that you receive from sex. Maybe that’s because I’m French,” Rondelli told Grub Street over the phone today.

Rondelli tried the concept in the Bayview in August, selling lunches out of a commercial kitchen space he rents on Jerrold Street. Apparently people liked it — about 60 showed up each day — but the space wasn’t set up for retail so he stopped. Still, Rondelli is sure there’s a market for calling desserts “beau-ner” and selling them by the inch.

Alain Rondelli Seeks X-Rated Comeback