The Business Journal’s annual report on young entrepreneurs, some of whom entered the working world while in their teens.

If you have a hankering for rattlesnake, there’s a place for you in Los Angeles.

Not only that; at the Wurstkuche Restaurant on East Third Street, you can get sausages made of alligator, rabbit or duck. Opened just four months ago by cousins Tyler Joel Wilson, 23, and Joseph Pitruzzelli, 27, the gourmet sausage and beer joint has already become a downtown hot spot.

“We didn’t expect the sausage sales to have such a profound takeoff,” Pitruzzelli said. “People order them like crazy.”

Added Wilson: “The economy hasn’t been a deterrent; somehow we’ve been profitable every day since Day One.”

The original idea, the cousins said, was to open just a bar. Wilson had taken business courses at USC, but had been turned down for admission to the university’s business school. Pitruzzelli, on the other hand, had started an architectural firm in San Francisco where he had designed several bars.

When the pair began looking for space in downtown Los Angeles, however, one thing became clear: Both city officials and the community prefer alcohol served with food.

“We kicked around a lot of ideas,” said Wilson, who spent a year working in a bar “strictly for research” until he got fired.

Gradually their concept emerged.

“It was all about hunting for exotics,” Pitruzzelli explained. “We looked for insane, off-the-wall things that were palatable. That was the key.”

The cousins named their small restaurant Wurstkuche German for “sausage kitchen” and got started with about $500,000 borrowed from family and friends.

“Youth has its advantages because people are willing to help out,” Wilson said.

Today they are well on their way, not only to repaying the debt, but to batting a culinary home run. And what of the future?

“I’d like to migrate into some sort of development or property ownership,” Wilson said. “I write a check to our landlord each month, and he doesn’t do a thing. That’s what I’d really like to do: receive checks from hard-working individuals.”

FAST FACTS:

– Tyler Joel Wilson, 23, and Joseph Pitruzzelli, 27, president and chief executive, respectively, of Wurstkuche Restaurant, downtown Los Angeles

– Business: Restaurant specializing in sausages and beer

– Employees: 27, including Wilson and Pitruzzelli

– Financials: $40,000-$50,000 gross revenue a week, highly profitable

– Fact: One of their biggest sellers is rattlesnake sausage imported from Utah