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Overcast Ready Check Glo: Light is a bright idea
Lynbrook native finds commercial success with handy new restaurant tool
One night in 2009, Lynbrook native Celestina Pugliese was having dinner at a restaurant with her boyfriend at the time. After they finished eating, their server repeatedly asked them if they were ready to pay their check, which they found irritating. It was then that Pugliese came up with a bright idea.
“The waiter kept coming back twice, three, four times,” she said. “It was to the point that my date and I were really becoming annoyed. He kept coming back and asking us if we were asking for the check, and then he started hovering, just waiting for us to call him over. Finally, I asked my companion, who was in the restaurant business for a long time, ‘Isn’t there anything with a light or something on it, so the waiter doesn’t have to keep checking?’”
As it turned out, no such product existed. Pugliese decided to change that, and began work on what would she would call Ready Check Glo.
An improvement on the check folders found in most eateries, her invention features a small, clear window that is backlit with a small light bulb. When customers are ready to pay their check, they can illuminate the window, which can be customized to feature a restaurant’s name or logo.
“It seemed like such a simple solution,” Pugliese said, “but I checked around online as I came up with the idea and I couldn’t find anything like it.”
A 1987 Lynbrook High School graduate, Pugliese, 44, attended Adelphi University, where she earned a degree in management and communications. Before coming up with Ready Check Glo, she worked as a stock trader and motivational speaker.
The device debuted at W Hotels and Resorts in 2011, and has since found plenty of success. It is currently in use at over 100 businesses, including Four Seasons hotels, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Harrah’s Las Vegas Casino and Hotel, and the Culinary Institute of America. It also recently attracted the attention of culinary television, as Pugliese and her product appeared last month on an episode of “Food Fortunes,” a Food Network program on which inventors and entrepreneurs pitch their products to some of the industry’s most successful investors.
