Photography by Shawn LaChapelle
Anthony Robustiano remembers being 28 and stubborn: The Albany native had packed everything up, quit his job, and moved out to Cincinnati to chase his dream of being a stand-up comedian.
“My whole life, I’ve had delusional self-belief in the things that I could do,” he says. “But really, I think it’s good to be delusional in this regard.”
Case in point: This past May, Anthony, on the brink of his 35th birthday, became the first local comedian to headline The Egg. He now has more than 1.8 million followers between TikTok and Instagram. Getting to this point, however, wasn’t a walk in the park.
“I remember driving DoorDash at 10:30pm to the worst parts of Cincinnati, delivering burgers and dreaming of that moment,” he says. But it wouldn’t be until after a setback—or what seemed like a setback at the time—that Anthony’s comedy career would take off.
While Anthony was in Cincinnati, his parents, Claudio and Joanne, opened a deli in Vermont, and suggested he move to the Green Mountain State, too, to help out with the family business. His initial reaction was absolutely not. How could he walk away from what he was trying to accomplish? Then, he reconsidered.
“I had $17 in my bank account, and I remember calling my dad,” he says. “It was a tough phone call to make, because you never want to call your parents and be like, ‘I need help.’ But my dad was like, ‘Hey man, we’ve been waiting for this phone call. You’ve got a spot here in Vermont.’”
While it wasn’t what he wanted, the move to Vermont was exactly what he needed. Back with his family, Anthony found his creative groove again by creating funny videos to promote the deli. He remembers a pivotal conversation with his grandfather during that time.
“I said, ‘How did you know that you wanted to be a car mechanic? You know, I’m kind of lost at sea here. I need some guidance.’ And without hesitation, he’s like, ‘Born with it…the same way that you were born to make people laugh.’”
Being around family and community gave Anthony the confidence he needed. Soon enough, people were coming into the deli because they loved watching Anthony’s videos online.
“It was that moment where I was like, ‘I think that I can really make a difference with the comedy that I do,’” he says. One night, after a few drinks, he asked a local bar owner if she’d consider doing a stand-up night, promising that he’d fill the place, but not quite knowing how he’d do it. She gave him a date.
The next day, he woke up thinking what did I do? But when he checked his phone, he had a text from the bar owner. They’d put the event up on their website, and it sold out in 15 minutes. They already wanted to schedule another comedy night.
“I don’t think it’s a mistake that things started to open up when I came back home, because I seek power from my family,” he says. “Being around them, being surrounded by love, does a lot for a person. It changed my life.”
The Robustianos, mind you, are a family that’s willing to drop everything and rearrange their lives when one of their own is in need. When Anthony’s sister, Mattia Szczepanski, got diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia in March of 2025, her family packed up shop and moved back to the Capital Region to be closer to her.
As a pediatric ICU nurse, Tia had always been most comfortable giving her care generously to others. Suddenly, when she received her diagnosis, she found herself in the opposite role. She needed a bone marrow transplant. While she had a 100 percent match in Norway, her condition progressed, and she needed the transplant sooner than her donor could get to the United States. Both of her brothers were a 50 percent match, and the doctors decided to go with CJ, the oldest of the three siblings.
Anthony, meanwhile, encouraged Tia to share her journey with others. She started posting video updates online, and he created a GoFundMe.
“I wanted to show people that you can have a hard day, and you can have a hard journey, but it doesn’t mean it’s your ending,” Tia says. “I wanted to make something out of my journey. I wanted to prove that, yeah, you can have a life-changing diagnosis, but you can turn it into something positive. That was my motivation.”
The positivity Tia put out into the world came back to her tenfold. When the GoFundMe went live, she was amazed at the response.
“It was extremely overwhelming, in the best way possible,” she says. She remembers her brother telling her that there were so many people who loved her and her husband, and they wanted to show it.
The experience, she says, helped her see the goodness in people. “Not that I didn’t see the good in people before, but when you’re put in a position where you have to take help, you really see just how many good people there are in this world and in your life.”
During her sickness, finding joy and gratitude in life’s smallest details was crucial as well. “Going through post-transplant was really, really, hard,
and no one talks about it,” she says. “I just started telling myself, ‘All right, just find one thing—even if it’s like, oh, my coffee tasted really good today.’ Even if it’s something little, at least I can find one thing in my day to get me through.”
Often, that one thing was the simple comfort of changing into a new, comfy pair of pajamas. This inspired her to create her own pajama brand, T.S. Comfies—the T.S. standing for Tia Strong.
“I wanted to create something that someone could put on if they were going through a rough day, and just feel a sense of comfort,” she says. “Because that was my comfort in the hospital. Being able to give that comfort to someone else—no matter what stage of life they’re in—that’s what I wanted to do.”
Today, Tia is a survivor. When she’s not working on her pajama brand, she’s with her family. This past June, the Robustianos opened Robo’s Creemees & Deli in the former home of Genoa Importing on Loudon Road, in Albany, where they serve up homemade soft ice cream, specialty sandwiches, and imported Italian pantry goods.
As always, all hands are on deck. Both Tia and Anthony work alongside their parents, and they’re hoping to get their other brother, CJ, to join the Robo’s team, too.
“One of my favorite things about my family is that we’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders,” Tia says. “No matter if it’s my parents’ business, Anthony being a comedian, or my new business, I’m just grateful that I get to be here to watch everyone’s dreams come true.”
