To learn about Joey Marcella, co-owner and president of Mario & Son, you have to learn a bit about his father. “He was a tile setter ever since he was about 16 years old,” said Marcella. “He taught us boys the tile trade. I never really had a summer vacation since I was in about seventh grade. We would always be helping dad with his tile install and things like that. I was a professional drummer early in my career before I got into stone and being a tile setter and learning those trades early on was a good thing for me because I was playing clubs at night and during the day helping dad set tile. I didn’t particularly enjoy that but it paid the bills. Early in the 90s, we were doing a lot of homes where they typically had a fireplace that had 12 x 12 marble tiles going around the surround. With those we would have to figure out how we were finishing the edges. We didn’t know anything about stone fabrication. We learned that we could sand those edges and make them shiny and that interest me a lot. Dad was the same way and that was what kind of launched us into stone fabrication.”
Mario & Son had three new pieces of machinery ordered during the pandemic, which provided a unique set of challenges for Marcella. “This is what really defined our COVID hell,” Marcella said. “When the governor shuts you down and countries put on travel bans, it can really put the hurt on your plans. Which is what happened. We had GMM, Breton, Commondulli and Water Treatment technologies all affected by it. Commundulli was able to sneak in right before COVID hit, but their edging machine is a thirsty machine, we needed upgrades to our water system in order to accommodate it. Water Treatment was handling it for us but they had to be held off for several months because of flight restrictions and their own lockdowns. During that time we had to play musical machines, we could only run certain machines if other machines were not running because of water pressure.