About Tino's Italian Bistro & Wine Bar, Columbia, Maryland Restaurant

Tino’s Italian Bistro & Wine Bar is Open 7 days a week from 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM for dine-in service, carryout and delivery.

Tino’s is a family-run small business. Owned and operated locally, our focus is on classic Italian food, amazing wine, great service, and a strong presence in our community. Flavorful dishes, hearty portions, and reasonable prices, along with a welcoming, family-friendly atmosphere helped build loyal customers and made us an award-winning Howard County restaurant for six years running.

In April 2020, we added Ultraviolet Air Treatment System proven to improve air quality and eliminate mold, bacteria, and airborne viruses. In addition to utilizing handheld Ultraviolet wands and tabletop. These tools along with our extensive cleaning protocols create a safe environment our customers can trust 100% of the time.

Tino’s Italian Bistro is a family-run restaurant, started to provide the best food, service and value, and give back to our community!

Our team

Lance Cook and Nicole Giannini, purchased Tino’s Italian Bistro & Wine Bar on January 26, 2015. After decades of serving other owners, Lance created an organization and concept that was firmly rooted in the community with homemade, fresh, high quality food; paired with great wine and spirits, in an all-inclusive welcoming environment. These are not just words, our customers are our first priority, our community is paramount to our success, and high quality and aiming to exceed expectations are minimum requirements.

OWNER, OPERATING MANAGER

Lance Cook, Owner brings more than 25 years of restaurant experience in the food and beverage industry along with business management, finance, and marketing expertise. Lance has held many positions from General Managers, Bartender, Server, cooking and otherKitchen positions to Busser. He has served as an independent restaurant and bar consultant, a corporate trainer for managers, worked at multiple locations and assisted with the start-up of a local health food store and restaurant.

Under Lance’s management, restaurants have consistently established quality business and service practices, policies and procedures. Operating procedures and checklists, training manuals, recruiting and training staff in all areas is key. He is adept at evaluating and tailoring food and drink offerings. He has developed long-standing professional relationships throughout the restaurant industry, including food and liquor vendors, State and County officials, local community organizations and businesses.

Lance is an established restaurateur and community business leader who has actively lived and supported the area for over 7 years. Lance is an active member of the Bright Minds Board, the Rotary Club of Columbia Patuxent, Mid-Maryland Triathlon Club. He is an active contributor and speaker for the Leadership of Howard County and a staunch advocate for people with special needs. Lance actively supports organizations and associations to share information on the restaurant business and provides hands on training opportunities and part-time employment programs to support and employ all members of our community. Lance has received dozens of awards; many to acknowledge his leadership within the community, fundraising efforts, and nonprofit organization support.

OPERATIONS AND FUNDRAISING

Nicole Giannini Cook, COO, has 25+ years of progressive experience in business, organizational development, change management, and contracts, human capital management, leadership development training, and stakeholder relations. Over the past 15 years, she has led multiple fast paced, growing organizations build corporate infrastructure, business operations, streamline administrative efforts and grow business sales. Nicole earned her MBA with a focus in Organizational Development from Johns Hopkins University and has a BS in Business Administration.

Nicole supports the overall implementation of the corporate vision, expectations and strategy. She helps develop a solid infrastructure to ensure proper resources to manage day to day commitments and planned special events and meetings. She supports the owner and management team to manage corporate level decisions, organizational and human resources management, fundraising, and social media efforts.

Management Team

Our management team has a powerful combination of restaurant and business experience, possesses a unique set of skills including diverse food expertise, management, human resources, marketing, and public relations. This combined skill set leads to the hiring of quality kitchen and restaurant staff, the establishment of solid vendor relationships to enable consistent delivery of products at fair prices, the development of community involvement programs, and a focus on grass roots and social media marketing to attract and retain customers.

KITCHEN TEAM

Tino’s kitchen management works closely with the Owner to ensure tasty, quality food is provided to our customers. Our Team works hard, every day to ensure consistency and dedication to making every dish. We use fresh ingredients and make every dish to order. Our seasoned team of experts has been with us from the beginning. They are extremely dedicated and committed to the Tino’s mission and our customers. Our Team clean every inch of the kitchen, every day and pulls apart each area of the kitchen on a rotating basis for deep cleaning, to keep everything spotless and hygienic.

William Melgar Lopez, is responsible for all kitchen functions including food purchasing, preparation and maintenance of quality standards, sanitation and cleanliness, training of employees in methods of cooking, preparation, plate presentation, portion, cost control, and sanitation and cleanliness. Willy brings over 25 years in the restaurant business. He has solid experience, in every position throughout the kitchen. He works closely with the owner, Chef and our vendors to bring our customers delicious food and diverse weekly specials.

TINOS CATERING

Tino’s Catering has been expanding rapidly over the past six years. Our Catering Department has developed into a strong, independently operated business, providing a broad array of catering and special events from small to larger weddings and corporate events, holiday parties to wine dinner or bourbon and wine tasting events or smaller events, luncheons and/ or business meeting meals.

Catering and Events Director

Noelle Sment works closely with the owner to manage all Catering and Events. Noelle manages all events. She supports customers in every aspect of their planning to detailed timing and coordination of each event to the creation of menus and obtaining event resources (i.e., staffing-servers, bar, tents, tables, linens, cutlery, etc.). Noelle provides continuous outreach within our community and local businesses. Noelle coordinates with the kitchen to create diverse, exciting menus and in the detailed planning and solid delivery of all catering food and events. Noelle brings over 25 years of diverse, global experience in restaurant management, catering and event planning, as well as solid business and operations management expertise. She brings significant organization skill, excels in customer service and strong communication and coordination.

Catering Manager

Amanda Dennis, brings solid restaurant and event planning experience to our Catering Team. Mandy works closely with our guests and coordinates with leadership, kitchens and catering team to manage all catering business activities from securing venues, coordination of larger events and catering orders to event advertising and marketing efforts (flyers, promotions, social media). She brings considerable organization skill, strong communication, coordination, and customer service expertise.