This is Part 2 of our Real Jobs Report on Joe Amabile. For information on Joe’s family ties to the mob and his grocery store (or lack thereof), check out our earlier report.
There’s a sort of convergent evolution that happens amongst Bachelor contestants.
No matter how unique their individual background, if successful, they end up in the same place. Recording the same podcasts, poorly dancing the same TikTok dances, promoting the same supplement shakes.
On the first episode of Bachelor in Paradise, Joe Amabile announced he no longer had a grocery store, prompting the question: who is Joe now?
Instagram Joe? Podcast Joe?
In Part 2 of our Real Jobs Report on Joe Amabile: the Bachelorization of the man formerly known as Grocery Store Joe.
What does Joe Amabile currently do for a living?
Joe has clout. He has the most Instagram followers of any male contestant in Paradise (Demi is first overall) and he does the same promoted posts they all do–although being an everyman means Joe gets to mix beer and spirits with his protein shakes.
To Joe’s credit, he doesn’t do an overwhelming amount of sponsored posts, probably because he’s shifting to promoting his own product.
Sundays with Joe Pasta Sauce
Joe started a small food company called Sundays with Joe last year. Currently they produce two pasta sauces.
While there are brands who reach out to minor celebrities to make them the face of an existing product—Tipsy Girl Prosecco anyone?—we don’t think that’s the case for Joe’s pasta sauce.
The sauce jar says “product of Chicago,” the distributor does work with small brands, and the ingredients don’t match any of the private labels we cross-checked.
We would have liked Joe to tell us a story about his grandma’s recipe or something somewhere on the website but whatever. He did chronicle some of the sauce development on Instagram.
Heck, the slight jankiness of the website and the fact that shipping costs as much as the sauce even within Chicago further supports this being a pretty small operation.
Why does it cost $13 to ship two jars of sauce a few miles, Joe?
Are you sending it via UberEats? It only costs $2.75 to get almost anywhere in Chicago and back on the L Train. You could just tell folks where to meet you and save them $10.
As for the website, none of the links under the heading “Useful Links” work, so we don’t know how one would avail themselves of Joe’s generous return policy.
We can’t claim that our website is perfect and that we don’t have any grammatical errors, but we have 0.015% of the Instagram followers that Joe does and presumably less access to resources, so we feel entitled to point this out:
(Friendly reminder: Grammarly is free.)
In addition to sauce, Joe has been making a YouTube series where he visits local Chicago restaurants.
Unfortunately, his Instagram audience hasn’t really followed him over to that platform, so we don’t think a Food Network show is in the works just yet. Or maybe Bachelor Nation just isn’t that into carbs?
Forget the sauce, how does Joe make his bread?
If we had to venture a guess, we’d say the majority of Joe’s income for the past four years has come from appearing on ABC properties. After making a strong impression despite his early exit on The Bachelorette, Joe went on to appear in Bachelor in Paradise season 5 and Dancing with the Stars season 27, all in 2018.
Joe was scheduled to perform in 24 shows on the Dancing with the Stars: Live! Tour in 2019, but ended up doing even more. Joe replaced Juan Pablo (the actor, not the Bachelor) di Pace and later gymnast Mary Lou Retton as the celebrity guest on several nights.
Judging from his Instagram, Joe spent the rest of 2019 travelling and eating out, which was really incredible foresight pandemic-wise!
We should have all been so lucky.
Currently, in addition to being on season 7 of Bachelor in Paradise, Joe co-hosts the weekly Bachelor-affiliated Clickbait podcast which launched in 2020.
So, yeah, Joe does the podcast and the Instagram shakes, but we actually love the pasta sauce and the food vlogging for him. Joe’s clearly passionate about food — and about being from Chicago, sorry Kendall, better luck Serena — so they feel like a natural direction for him, which is important for a guy whose main appeal is his authenticity.
We are also relieved to report that Joe does not, as of this writing, have a TikTok.
xo Your Nosy Friends who are only slightly afraid to ever set foot in Chicago again
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