When Joe Cangiolosi moved back to the United States as a teenager, he had a clear vision of what he wanted his life to be. He had been living in Italy, where his parents owned and operated a pastry shop. He wanted to build something of his own the way they had. But he wanted to do it in America, where determination and a strong work ethic are enough to get aspiring entrepreneurs halfway down the road to success.

Joe Cangiolosi ended up back in Monroe, Michigan, where he was born, and much of the rest of his family followed shortly thereafter. He got to work immediately, picking up a job pouring concrete during the day and another delivering pizzas at night to provide for his mother, grandmother, and brothers. He was just 17 years old, but Joe said he already “felt like I was a father and a brother and a son and a grandson.”

Eventually, Joe said he sat his brothers, Vincent and Tony, down and convinced them that they needed to make an investment in their family’s future—one that would continue to bring returns for years to come. 

“I said to my brothers, ‘Man, I’m tired of living paycheck to paycheck. We need to open a business,’” he told IW Features.

And that’s exactly what they did. The brothers used the $20,000 they had been saving for a house and put it into a restaurant instead. 

“I looked at them, said, ‘Listen, if you buy a house, a house doesn’t bring your future. A business can bring your future. That business will allow us to buy a house. The house cannot allow us to buy the business.’”

That restaurant became Dolce Vita, Joe Cangiolosi’s first-ever business venture. It was an immediate success.

“We opened the business, and to be honest with you, we started making such good money. And when I was counting money that night, I would say, ‘God, Joe, welcome to America. This is the greatest country. Right here,’” he said.

“That sacrifice, that decision, it changed our life,” Joe added. “Because from then on I started developing, started building.”

Nearly 40 years later, the Cangiolosi family owns and operates more than four businesses in Michigan—one of which is starting to expand nationwide. 

Three of the Cangiolosi’s businesses are stand-alone pastry shops: Tony Cannoli in Woodhaven, Michigan, Luca Pastry in Kent, Michigan, and Tony Cannoli in Southgate, Michigan. The fourth business, Michigan Pastry Co., serves as an umbrella company for the other three, supplying the pastries and baked goods that each pastry shop sells on a daily basis.

“After we opened three stores, our stores couldn’t keep up with the demand because they’re small stores,” Joe Cangiolosi explained. “So we said, ‘Well, let’s open a commissary.’ And that’s how the Michigan Pastry Co. started. We opened it as a commissary to make sure we can feed our stores.”

“Then one day I said, ‘You know what? This can go across the country,’” Joe continued. “So, we start packaging and I reached out to distributors and told them, ‘Listen, I want to start selling my stuff to other stores across the country, and I want to start in Michigan.’”

Today, the Michigan Pastry Co. not only supplies the Cangiolosi’s pastry shops, but also dozens of bakeries, grocery stores, and other retailers across eight states. 

Two key factors have helped Joe Cangiolosi’s businesses succeed and expand, he said. The first and most important is the fact that they’re family-run, owned and operated not just by Joe and his two brothers, but by Joe’s three sons, Anthony, Michael, and Elijah, as well. In fact, Anthony helped launch the Cangiolosi’s first-ever stand-alone bakery, Tony Cannoli in Woodhaven, Michigan, in 2018.

“It was my first business I’ve ever opened,” Anthony Cangiolosi said. “I was working for a few years for a local mortgage company, and I decided that wasn’t for me. And so I opened up the bakery with my uncle; put every single penny that I had into it. And he put every single penny that he had into it. And we opened the doors not knowing what to expect.”

And just like Dolce Vita years earlier, Tony Cannoli was an instant success.

“The day we opened the doors, there was a line,” Anthony said. “And then from there on out, it’s always been busy, which felt like a blessing, because we didn’t really know what to expect. Honestly, we were just trying to open up a business to be able to pay our bills.”

The second factor that helped the Cangiolosis in their business ventures? Tax incentives from the government—specifically, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which went into effect the year before the family opened their first Tony Cannoli location.

“Taxes weren’t really on my mind until I went to go do my taxes,” Anthony said. “And I remember one of the first things my accountant had said to me was, ‘These Trump cuts are actually really going to help you.’ And it stuck with me. And I was like, ‘Oh, great. I need all the help I can get.’”

Anthony said two provisions from the TCJA in particular helped them get the pastry shop off the ground: Section 199A, which allows some business owners to deduct up to 20% of qualified income, and expanded bonus depreciation, which made it possible for businesses to write off 100% of any necessary equipment purchased between September 2017 and January 2023.

“Especially that first initial year, when you’re investing all that money in display cases, ovens, all kinds of equipment—instead of us having to depreciate it over five years, we were able to depreciate it all in that initial year, which gave us the savings that we really needed at that time,” Anthony Cangiolosi explained. “That’s what helped us the most.”

The Cangiolosis were able to take those savings and invest them right back into their growing businesses, which now employ more than 100 people, the majority of whom are women.

“When we save money in regards to a simple thing like tax cuts, we’re able to give that money back to our employees, and also grow our business and allow us to employ more people as well,” Anthony said. “We have employees that started with us five, six years ago. And when we first started, they were making a minimal amount. Now they’re making great money. They’re able to do way more for their families, and it’s just helped them tremendously.”

One of those employees is Patricia Duda, the executive pastry chef for Michigan Pastry Co. Duda was Joe Cangiolosi’s first hire for the company and has played a pivotal role in helping it expand its production and distribution.

“At first it was just me and one other woman,” Duda said. “And the other woman, she was making macarons. And I had the owner’s son helping me out, making tiramisu, and that’s all we started with. And then the volume started getting bigger, and then we hired more people, and then we doubled our size.”

The benefit of this growth for Duda has been more time at home. 

“Now that we’ve hired more employees, it’s not all on my back. I can leave at a normal time, and the benefit is going home and being with my family, spending time with my children, working around my house,” she said.

The ability to retain employees, provide them with increased benefits, and continue hiring more people are all consequences of good government policy like the TCJA, Joe Cangiolosi argued.

“Help starts from the top to the bottom. If we get help from the top, it goes all the way to the bottom. That for me is very simple. The government should give tax breaks to small businesses to make sure they get the chance to grow,” he said. “If you get a small business and you choke them right up from the beginning, you will not give them the opportunity to grow.”

That’s why it’s so important for Congress to secure the provisions in the TCJA that have helped businesses like the Cangiolosi’s succeed. As of now, several of these provisions, including expanded bonus depreciation, are set to expire at the end of this year. 

“If the 2017 tax cuts were to expire, at the end of the day we would see less cash. We would have to pay more in taxes. And so what that does is it restricts our cash flow. And when our cash flow is restricted, we’re not able to grow as rapidly as we have been the last few years,” Anthony Cangiolosi said. 

“How do you grow? It’s by having more money in your pocket and being able to reinvest and give more back to your employees and have employee retention,” he continued. “So if those [tax benefits] go away, we’re just not going to be able to maybe give back to our employees as much. We’re not going to be able to grow as fast.”

Luckily, Congress is considering new legislation that would make much of the TCJA permanent. The “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which is currently before the Senate, would also guarantee Americans permanently lowered income tax rates, a permanently doubled Child Tax Credit, permanent small business deductions, no taxes on tips, overtime pay, or car loan interest, and enhanced standard deduction, among many other benefits. 

It’s economic policies like these that make the American dream just as attainable today as it was when Joe Cangiolosi came back to the U.S. several decades ago. That dream has changed his life—and his family’s life—for the better. And it has the potential to do the same for countless other Americans, so long as our government works to protect it.

“We are living in the greatest country in the world. It gives you the chance to work hard and do whatever you want to do,” Joe said. 

“I’ve always been ambitious. I want to see this company across the country—not just for selfish reasons, but to impact as many people as we can,” he continued. “But already, I’ve achieved my American dream. In fact, I’ve achieved every dream, more than I deserve in this country. Hopefully it stays that way, and by the grace of God it gets better.”