From “What If” to “Let’s Do It” with Jason Cocuzza

What happens when you stop talking about ideas… and actually start bringing them to life?

In this episode of Local Legends with Jess, Jessica Benevento sits down once again with returning guest Jason Cocuzza for a conversation that feels less like an interview and more like a real-life brainstorm session you wish you were part of. There’s laughter, a little chaos, and a lot of vision.

From reflecting on childhood dreams, Jess opens up about the ideas that shaped her and the ones that still linger. It’s a reminder that sometimes the dreams we set aside never really leave us.

Then the conversation takes a turn into something deliciously unexpected—a deep dive into building a deli concept from the ground up. Not just any deli, but one rooted in East Coast authenticity, fresh ingredients, and community pride. Think homemade chicken cutlets, fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, and a space where customers don’t just order—they create.

But beyond the food, this episode is really about something bigger:
the difference between talking ideas out of existence… and talking them into reality.

Jess and Jason challenge each other (and you) to stop overthinking, start taking action, and create space for ideas to actually grow. Because sometimes the best businesses, the best moments, and the best versions of ourselves come from simply starting.

If you’ve ever had a “crazy idea,” this episode might just be the push you needed to take it seriously.

These are the local legends shaping our communities.
Real stories, real talk, and powerful conversations.
Local Legends with Jess — where Arizona’s stories connect.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Local Legends with Jess, the Arizona Edition. I'm Jessica Benevento, your mortgage matchmaker, opening doors with ease and bringing you the stories behind Arizona's most inspiring people. From best-selling authors and elite athletes to business badasses making moves across the valley. These are the local legends shaping our communities. Get the inside scoop, real talk, and powerful conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Local Legends with Jess, where Arizona's stories connect. Welcome back to Local Legends. Here with me, Jess, and I have yet another fabulous local legend here, Mr. Jason Kakuza. You are on again.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Thank you. This is like the fourth time.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I feel very poor Pop. Is he home reading the paper?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Reading the paper or watching football plays or watching cooking.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Those three things.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yeah. Okay. So what are we going to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I don't know. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Let's talk about at least had a good idea. Let's talk about how is it to live with.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Oh, you is in. Let's talk about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I just want you to say how cool I am. But wait, I had on Brennan. You weren't here for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

I know. I saw him when I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Um and it's funny because he was like, I said, Who are you? And he's like, or I said, Who am I to you? And he's like, You were my therapist, which just sounds so crazy that that was the the dream I had for a while. And I really think it came from just I felt like I, you know, growing up, always I felt like I was always surrounded by problems and maybe I took them on.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

But I was really good at um taking on people's shit and helping them through it. Because I feel like I I experience a lot of things that people were going through.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Um you feel it. Yeah. Well is your son. Too much. It's very much like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I know. I know. That's that whole energy thing. It's the empath. Um but and my dream. Did I ever tell you my dream? No. Like of what the the whole future was for me. I know. I have a lot of them. But the the future in counseling was gonna be get my doctorate degree and have a three-level story and a storefront the front, or the first floor storefront was a coffee shop. So you'd go in, you'd get coffee, get all caffeine done. Yeah, go ahead. And then second floor was me. So you'd sit down with for the session, and then the third floor was gonna be a spa. So if you wanted to go for a complimentary facial or you know, massage. Is that such a good concept?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, except you have to have two and a half hours of time slot it.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

No, why would I have to have two and a half hours of time?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Well, I mean, you're gonna have coffee, maybe 15 minutes of coffee, hour and fifteen with you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Well, I mean you don't have I mean you don't have to do it every week. Yeah, no, I think that's a good idea. But it would be a cool I just think a cool business.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Maybe I go back there one day.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I think so. You can have the restaurant next to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yes, yes. Let's talk about your deli. Let's talk about your deli.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

No, don't you want to finish talking about your therapy?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

No, I'm done. That was it.

unknown 3:20

That was my plan.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Okay. I gotta follow the bouncing ball.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Sorry. Yeah. Let's follow that. Okay, now back to you. Mr. Local Legend. Okay, we talked before about the restaurant. Let's really talk about it though. Because we have these deep talks a lot, and it's almost like I would say this with Diana. We would have so many grand, crazy ideas, and it's almost like we would talk them out of existence. I want to talk them in existence with the artists.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Or maybe you learn from your mistakes and not talk so much about it. How about we set time to talk about it? And we task each other different things.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

We have 15 minutes. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Okay. What do we do? What kind of space do we need?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Well, I think we do a deli instead of a restaurant. I do too. A million percent.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I think you have like chicken cutlets, fresh mozzarella. You do the actual mozzarella, you make roasted peppers.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So give me a visual. You walk in.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

So you walk in and there's a long.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

When I hear deli, when people say deli, especially if they're not from back east. Yeah, well, that's I think you think of like you're slicing provolone. We're not doing that. No. No, we don't have to be.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Somebody's there to greet you. Hello. Hello. And then there's bread that you can buy.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

What are you saying?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

No, there's usually loaves of good bread. Your visual is brutal. No, that's because you don't really cook that much, right? So it's good to see a place with good bread. Then you know the sandwiches are gonna be good. If you're selling bread, then you know your sandwich is good. All right, give me a visual of the place. I was, but then you interrupt. All right. And then there's a counter. And there's what do you mean? Well, you don't have counters? All right, go on. And then there's the actual food, right? Because you're not letting me explain myself. No, then you see the actual food, like the chicken cutlets. People don't see that out of here. I'm not I'm saying like you have like when you go to the place in uh Montclair.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Okay, that's what I want to reference. Yes, Bella Giovanni's?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yes. Okay. But you could see the chicken cutlets, you could see the roasted peppers, you could see the mozzarella.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Glass counter with all the specialty foods that you make.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, and then you pick the sandwich and you know it's coming from there. Okay. Right. So normally places here, you say, I want a ham and cheese sandwich, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And they make it in front of you, slice the ham. But this is like chicken cutlets, eggplant.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Right. Eggplant porn.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Roasted eggplant. Uh fried eggplant.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Because they're different. Long hot. Peppers, long hots. Like spicy, long. Like people don't have those out here. Like spicy peppers that are roasted in the oven, and you take the skin off, and then you have roasted garlic in with olive oil, and it just marinates in that. You put that on top of a sandwich and it changes the whole complexity of the sandwich. Yep. And then you have different ones. And the cool thing, I always liked like people in the area that come in, you have them build a sandwich. Because then people have pride when they come into your restaurant. I always thought that was cool for those places in Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Like, oh, like um like say Luis Gonzalez came in.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

You would have the gonzo and have his sandwich. Yeah. But I would kind of build it based on how he likes to eat, and then I would give it to him and I would say, What do you think of this? And if somebody loves it, then I would name it after that individual.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Because like they're not going to know what they don't know.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

And then what about I think we take in soups? Okay. No, but I think we take in what um we experienced in Rome with the guy that had two meals. Well, I was getting there. I'm going to go with sandwiches. Sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

And then have two pastas. Okay. That that you can get. Two dishes. Yes. Two pasta specials, that's it. Okay. You start getting two too many dishes, you need too big of a kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Right? You just want to like focus on certain things and then it see where life takes you within the restaurant. Okay. And just kind of diverse from there.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

What kind of space do we need? How big?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I really haven't thought, but I'm going to say probably 2,000, 2200.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I think we really look at that one on Scottsdale Road, that one that was a um realty one report. You know what Joe said? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Geo's is coming up. He goes, I know you wouldn't never want to go to uh never in a million years.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

No, I don't like that spot. But no, I don't want that. Okay. I'm going to tell you why Scottsdale Road is key. First of all, they're building, first of all, Scottsdale Road is getting insane, right? But they're building the Cardinals practice thing. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I think you got to do a mini mall, right? Somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

But I think that Realty, I think where JJ's deli is, we're not competing with Jay to completely different.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Well, I would love to take over that Italian restaurant if they ever give it up. What Italian restaurant? The uh pizzeria.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Oh, Lorenzo's?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah. We don't need to mess with them. But No, no, I'm saying if they're ever, if they ever wanted to lie, there's a spot in that complex.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

That realty won't. I know there's nothing like that.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I like the corner though. I think that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

No. I think we're looking there today.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Okay. Okay. And what are we calling it?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I don't even think we could. Cocoosas. I yeah, I do like that. I love cocoosas. Where it smells like Sunday. Yep. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

And you could do meatballs one day. Well, that would be part of the sandwiches.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Oh, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah. Like um meatballs and then the other like saute broccoli rob. Like people don't know that, and you put that on a sandwich. Right. Like you can have a chicken cutlet and have red roasted peppers that you roast yourself with fresh mozzarella. Right. But then if you do chicken cutlet with broccoli rob fresh mozzarella, it's it's such a different sandwich.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Where are we getting our bread from?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

That's a great question because the only good places I th actually know, I think there's some good places. You just gotta see what the price is and kind of figure those out and go to places where you like the sandwiches.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I think what's his name makes the pest sandwich. Um hit the way he makes mozzarella and they make that their bread, their own bread bread, yeah. He makes certain breads. But I yeah. I think he's got a good story. I always found him to be interesting, and the way he makes his sandwiches are the closest.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Why don't you reach out to him?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Well, I haven't really even decided to do anything. You are doing it today. I know, but I haven't like made any phone calls, told anybody to do it. Start making phone calls.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Today is the day. Why is this back on me about this? Because this is your dream and your passion.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

What's your dream?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

I'm doing what I love doing. I'm gonna be discovered one day and be famous. Let's talk about your daughter. How excited are you? Oh my God, I'm so excited. So Sophia tried out for um a play because we said you can't not do something. And she didn't want to do softball again, which was such a bummer because I really selfishly wanted to see her play, but maybe she'll go back to it at some point. And randomly, I was like, Oh, your mother, my mother-in-law said, get her into acting. And it's so I just didn't want to go to some random acting class or acting school. I have no idea. And um, I reached out to Mike's friend's mom, my friend G, and she was like, Oh my gosh, they have plays at DC, you know, at the DC ranch, and literally learned a 30-second monologue, a song, and went four days later and friggin' stranger things together.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, and the kids, it was all of us, the family, even pop every so often. We're pop in and ask what's going on, which drove me crazy because so difficult to follow. But all of us, and then Sophia really loved it. And there was a song from there from Kate Bush.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

How does it go?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I don't know, so I'm not singing. But can you sing this song? No, I don't even know the words, but in any event, um I remember Howard Stern's like, I hate this song. I brought this back. Yeah, but in any event, Sophia, we I don't even know if she knew she had to sing, and then we came up with a uh monologue. So I'm like, hmm. So if I'm gonna pull up monologues, I'm like, this is perfect. It was Veruca from Willy Wonka.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

She got that down, Pat. Like being a brat, she was pretty good at it. She was pretty good. She came natural.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

And then uh I want it now, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Or something like that. Or or I shall start.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And then um she nailed it. She sang that song.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

And she nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

And she got, we got yesterday, we got No, so she went there and they said, Um, you see if you get a call back. So she we got an email, she got a callback. And I'm like, this actually seems pretty legit. It's like you said there's different slots for people. And then yesterday we got a well, you got an email, and what did it say?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

She got the part as an orphan and as the announcer, which I thought was so badass.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, I thought that was cool. And the way she handled it was like it was she didn't want an orphan, she actually wanted to be Annie. She wanted to be Annie, but it was actually cool because she like knew, okay, maybe this is not my time to have the major role and I need to work on some things. But they saw that I have something because they gave me these two special parts and she just owned it. I'm so excited. And I think she's just I honestly think she's gonna love. I'm gonna start crying, but I do think she's gonna love just like going through like meeting new people and just because she came home that day and she's like, Dad, could I show you my dance? I'm like, You learned to dance already?

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So then, like for the next three days, she's like, Dad guy. I'm like, gee, I mean, so please, this is the ninth time I've seen this dance. And every time you do it a little different, so I think you're starting to forget it. She's like, You're so annoying, dad. I'm like, Well, I do watch you, you know, that's how I know. But it's so cool. She's so cool. I know.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

And then baseball starts this weekend.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Yeah, Mike's got a doubleheader.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, we got a packed uh packed ear with our kiddos. I know.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

And a restaurant opening. And we just had a wedding. Yeah. Which was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

And your daughter just got married. Is that wild?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

That feel real.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah, it was nice. You know, I said in my speech that it's very speech was phenomenal, by the way. I appreciate it. Well, the night before you told me it sucks, so I think I had to do some uh soul searching.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

But you did.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Although I really wanted you to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, right. That's this is just so you can get. You want me to tell you what you wanted me to do? Absolutely. I own it. So I had a situation. You're like this, Elise. And there was a part where I said that they, and honestly, they never really do fight and they have no drama, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if anybody needs therapeutes, my wife and I, in a shout out to Jess, show us your tits, right? She wanted to like pretend to do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I wanted to stand up and have everyone look at me and be like, just joking, like just to and G would have loved that. Yeah, that's she actually it would have again.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I was already embarrassed for my brother, so I really didn't want to call any more attention to.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

So you know, too, my brother-in-law, the whole time my husband was saying this speech was screaming, I love Jet.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

No, no, he's hot. You're right and wrong. What he did, which was even worse, and you're gonna agree, is Gianna, my daughter's mom, was giving a speech and he's yelling. Oh, I don't know. Which was before, yes, you do. He was yelling, we want Jason. I want Jason. Jason. I'm like, Chuck, stop. And then when I was on, he was yelling, Jess is hot. Jess, I'm like, You're this is your niece getting married. But what I was saying, and we just went on a tangent like we normally do, is that in life, like as you get older, all you have is weddings, and all you have is funerals. And it seems like there's more funerals nowadays as you get older, which is sad. You know, I see my father on the phone with his friends, like who got diagnosed with this, who got diagnosed with that. That weddings are actually nice because people that you love are in a room. You get to it, it was nice to actually go to other people's weddings where there was no money spent on your end, but right. It was just nice to see people be in a room and spend a good four or five hours with people that you love. It was beautiful. And it was a wonderful wedding and uh so fun. Yeah. You did a great job.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah. Well, I love you. I love you. Thank you for being on here. Thank you for having me. And uh, next time we will actually be going over the menu. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Um, but we're gonna leave here and I should make you a sandwich that you never had and have you tried for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I would love that. ASMR. I was chewing on the stuff. So we'll have Sophie do it. What does ASMR mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:23

I don't know what it stands for, but it's the No, I know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Number Sophie.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Whatever that is. All right. Well, this is a wrap. Thank you. I love you.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Love you too.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Till next time. Ciao.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Chow.