Meryl Feinstein was building an impressive but unfulfilling career in public relations — until she followed her heart (and stomach) down a much more appetizing path.
“The idea of doing something off the beaten track was just never discussed.”
Like a lot of people she knew, Meryl Feinstein was never much of a risk taker.
“I grew up in a community where there were very specific expectations. You go to college, maybe you get a graduate degree, you get a job... and that’s it,” said the 30-year-old from Austin, Tx. “The idea of doing something off the beaten track was just never discussed.”
So it came as a surprise to everyone in Feinstein’s life — herself most of all — when, after five years working in public relations, she dropped everything and carved out a new role for herself as a culinary entrepreneur, launching Pasta Social Club, a hybrid supper club and pasta-making school that also offers virtual classes on everything from hand-folding orecchiette to filling homemade ravioli.
On her winding path to internet-famous pasta-preneur, Feinstein said embracing the financial — and emotional — risks of striking out on her own have shaped her into the creative and confident business owner she is today.
A foodie foundation
From the time she was young, Feinstein had always been a very adventurous eater who spent hours glued to her favorite cooking shows.
“When I was really young, my parents would be like: ‘Here! Try this raw fish!’” she recalled. “And I’d be like: ‘Yes! I will eat sushi!’”
Feinstein’s own parents weren’t big cooks, but she grew up in a close-knit Jewish community where life centered around food and sharing meals. “Every Friday night we would do Shabbat dinner with family and friends,” she said. “So food was a centerpiece of my life.”
Yet cooking and eating still seemed more like passions to her, rather than a possible career track, so Feinstein studied art history in college. After, she jumped into public relations representing museums around the world — not necessarily because she loved it, but because it seemed like a logical next step.
For years, however, she couldn’t kick the nagging feeling that her chosen career just somehow wasn’t right. “I was learning a lot. In a lot of ways, I did enjoy my work,” she said. “But I just could not see myself doing it for another five years.”
So when her husband encouraged her to take her lifelong love of food seriously, she uncharacteristically jumped at the idea of doing something totally out of her comfort zone.
“[His support] didn’t give me permission, but it did give me encouragement,” Feinstein said. “Once I decided to do it, I enrolled without giving myself time to think too much about it. I didn’t want to talk myself out of it.”
“Food was a
centerpiece
of my life.”
“It felt like the first big risk I had ever really taken.”
Risking it all for pasta
When Feinstein made that jump from PR to the culinary world, it felt like the first big risk she had ever really taken. And it didn’t necessarily come naturally to her at first.
“I was terrified on the first day of culinary school,” she admitted. “I had never worked in an industrial kitchen before. Everything is bigger, hotter, and sharper. I definitely felt like a fish out of water.”
But after she leapt once, it became easier for her to do it again — and after finishing culinary school, her career once again took a swerve. For a stretch, she worked for a few Brooklyn restaurants where she mastered the art of handmade pasta, a skill she first picked up on her honeymoon in Italy.
Around that time, while spending many nights surrounded by pillowy gnocchi and hand-cut fettuccine, she first got the idea to pursue pasta professionally — and to somehow connect it with her passion for rediscovering something that is hard to come by in the modern era: community and connection.
“I always had this dream of running a supper club to help other young adults find community. So many people I knew in Manhattan never made new friends,” Feinstein said. “They never had a chance to just sit back, relax, and have a really nice dinner party. I wanted to recreate the Shabbat experience I had as a child without it being religious.”
Like a true millennial, Feinstein turned to social media, where she started advertising supper parties with pasta tasting menus, which evolved into teaching pasta classes to New Yorkers keen to try their own hands at rolling and shaping dough.
“I figured Instagram was a low-risk way to get started,” Feinstein said. And it worked — slowly, Feinstein’s exquisite dishes started getting attention. Her dinner party events began to sell out. But she still didn’t have a clear plan for where she wanted her pasta business to go.
An unexpected curveball
Then, the pandemic happened. And like many people in the food industry, Feinstein panicked about what would happen to her very-much-in-person business.
“It was actually a follower of mine who said: ‘Have you ever thought about teaching pasta online?’” she said.
From there, Pasta Social Club took off in another direction, as Americans who were stuck at home and craving the connection and comfort that pasta can offer clamored to take her virtual workshops. The at-home pasta-making lessons turned out to be a, well, recipe for success.
“I think I have gained probably 100,000 followers in the past year,” said Feinstein, who noted repeatedly how grateful she is for her success during what has been a long and painful year for so many Americans. “It has just been crazy.”
“Have you ever thought about teaching pasta online?”
“My greatest love is going out to eat. All of my expendable income goes to food and drinks!”
Learning to treat herself — and the business
As Pasta Social Club has grown, Feinstein has had to remind herself that it is OK to invest money back into the business, particularly as she has moved past the point of wondering whether she will be able to keep the lights on each month.
It took her a while to realize, for example, that she really needed to spend a bit more money on better technology when the pandemic first hit and her business shifted online.
“I had to tell myself: ‘If 95% of my business is now virtual classes, I need to make sure people can actually hear me and see things properly!’” she said. “So I did buy a nice webcam and tripod. I really am trying to invest back into the business more.”
Beyond that, Feinstein still doesn’t like to spend much money on herself — with one major exception.
“My greatest love is going out to eat!” she said, noting how much she has missed that aspect of her life over the past year, and how much she looks forward to supporting restaurants around her as the world slowly reopens. “All of my expendable income goes to food and drinks!”
Finding freedom in simply letting go
If there is one thing Feinstein has begun to embrace over the past few years, it is the fine art of loosening up. That applies to how she approaches cooking, as well as how she approaches her career and life.
“Before the pandemic, my approach to pasta was much more rigid. I’d tell students: ‘You have to use this type of flour. You need these certain tools,’” said Feinstein, chuckling at herself a bit. “Now I’m more like, ‘OK, you don’t have 00 flour? That’s fine! Use what you have!’”
She brings up the example of pici, which is a Tuscan, hand-rolled spaghetti. “You can use all-purpose flour, water, and olive oil,” Feinstein said. “That’s it. You don’t even need a rolling pin; you can use a wine bottle!”
The first virtual classes she taught early on in the pandemic were pici classes, and they were — in Feinstein’s words — perfect.
With each new step she has taken in her career, it has also become easier for her to let go of the somewhat rigid way of thinking that once held her back. And while Feinstein admits she has moments of nervousness about what the future holds for Pasta Social Club — as all entrepreneurs do — she makes a conscious point to take time to reflect on what she has accomplished by simply putting one foot in front of the other, one small risk at a time.
“I know what it feels like to think: I’ve made this commitment. I’ve invested time and money and resources into this career. How can I possibly walk away, even if it makes me unhappy?” Feinstein said. “The reality is you can. Maybe it will take time. It will look different for everybody, depending on your circumstances. But there are ways to make it happen.”
“Maybe it will take time but there are ways to make it happen.”
My name is Meryl Feinstein,
I am be founder of Pasta Social Club.
I made the career shift from the art world and PR
into the culinary industry because I wanted to take control of my career.
When I was envisioning my ideal career,
working for myself was always at the top of that list. I love working with others,
but I just wanted to have control over my time
I wanted to be able to adapt
and not have to ask permission. I wanted to be able to trust my
instincts in a way that I felt was not possible in
the corporate ladder structure that I was in.
Once I got into a couple of months of the pandemic and I realized the interest in the virtual classes that I was teaching, I could again anticipate my income and drive demand so that I could fill those slots. I also found doing fewer classes created more demand, and more ability to sort of plan. And once I created that schedule and things did start to sell out quickly, it became top of mind for people to get in on it while they could they were like, “Oh, I really want to join this one. I got to kind of get in on it while I can.”
At the end of every month, I take a look at my spreadsheet, my overarching spreadsheet of revenue and expenses, and I calculate everything fully and I put those numbers in and it gives me so much peace and serenity, because when you're invested in the day to day, and you're making little purchases here and there, you can think that things are maybe going in a direction that they're not. You can take a step back and look at me like, “Okay, everything's going be fine. I can pay my bills. I can save some money.” So whenever I get to that stage at the end of the month, I just breathe a sigh of relief.
I think optimism is an attitude. I think going into every experience with a smile and always assuming the best in people, even when things are a little challenging, recognizing that this too shall pass and things will improve. I think when you live your life with that openness and that assumption of joy, the universe gives back to you a little bit, those kinds of opportunities continue to come your way.