Hyattsville Entrepreneurs Launch Pasta Rituals, Bringing Artisanal Frozen Ravioli to Local Markets

Jeffrey Haddad and Georgio Takounakis turned a Christmas Eve family ritual into a retail product when they launched Pasta Rituals, a Hyattsville-based small business now selling small-batch frozen ravioli at markets and pop-ups across the greater D.C. area.

The business builds on Haddad's family tradition of hand-rolling dough to make northern Italian recipes each Christmas Eve. That heritage shows up directly in the product line: three varieties of frozen ravioli, classic ricotta, mushroom ricotta, and spinach herb ricotta, each claiming a preparation time of three to five minutes.

Pasta Rituals has been building its local footprint through pop-up appearances alongside retail placement. The founders held a pop-up at Streetcar 82 Brewing Co. in the Route 1 corridor on Friday, March 20, running from 4 to 8 p.m. Beyond that event, the product is available through the Pasta Rituals website and at three Union Kitchen Grocery locations in the greater D.C. area. The Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-op also added Pasta Rituals to its shelves in mid-March.

The launch positions Pasta Rituals squarely in the artisanal frozen pasta niche, where convenience and craft credentials are the main selling points. A three-to-five-minute cook time on handcrafted ravioli is the kind of pitch that travels well at a brewery pop-up, and placing product at Union Kitchen Grocery, a retailer with a track record of incubating local food brands in the D.C. market, gives the duo meaningful early shelf presence.

With three filling varieties already in rotation and a growing list of retail partners, Pasta Rituals is moving quickly from family kitchen tradition to recognizable fixture on the local food scene.