Long Island's Brian Autz looking for love on this year's 'Bachelor in Paradise'

North Shore-raised Brian Autz, who vied for the hand of Jenn Tran on last year’s "The Bachelorette" season 21, made it only through Episode 2 before being cut. Yet he made enough of an impression that Autz — who splits his time between Long Island and Florida now that he’s become partner in a restaurant here — is among the Day 1 cast of ABC’s "Bachelor in Paradise." Season 10 of that franchise spinoff premieres Monday at 8 p.m.

The show, which gathers fan favorites from the dating competitions "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette" and, for the first time, the two "Golden" senior versions, whisking them to a tropical resort for another shot at romance, features Jesse Palmer as host and Wells Adams as bartender/confidante. New this season are the Azura Hotel, an adults-only resort in Sámara, Costa Rica, and Hannah Brown — star of "The Bachelorette" season 15 in 2019, who went on to win "Dancing with the Stars" later that year — as "head of paradise relations."

Autz, 34, who like all Bachelor Nation cast members signed a nondisclosure agreement forbidding him to speak with press until after his season ends, could not comment for this article. But his brother-in-law and business partner, veteran restaurateur Sosh Andriano, says the demands of the series didn’t deter either of them from investing together in Andriano’s expansion of his Northport eatery The Whales Tale to a second outpost in Hampton Bays. The new 166-seat restaurant held its grand opening June 3. 

"He was 11 when I started dating his sister," Jennifer Andriano, a Suffolk County police officer and the eldest of four siblings, Sosh Andriano, 47, says. "So in a lot of ways he was almost kind of like a son to me. And so when I opened [The Whales Tale] in Northport, he started working there at around 18 years old and up until his mid-twenties," in between stints at the University at Buffalo, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science, and then Farmingdale State College, where he earned a B.S. in business.

Autz, who was born in Huntington and raised in Northport and East Northport, eventually worked as chief operating officer for Sosh Brands, which owns The Whales Tale and its affiliated brewery, Harbor Head. He then broke out on his own to work for other, unrelated corporations, and still works, both in Florida and remotely, as a territory manager for the multinational corporation Merz Aesthetics.

"We've always spoken about doing something together," Andriano says. "Eventually I happened to stumble upon this location" in Hampton Bays this past March "and fell in love with it." The site, formerly Tully’s Fish Market and Snack Shack, "had the infrastructure in place for us to do what we do. So when I saw it, he was the first one I called. And because he was working on ‘Bachelor in Paradise’ it was a little challenging," since cast members are incommunicado while the season is in production, "but he wanted to do it and I'm glad he did."

In the meantime, Autz in February took two weeks’ vacation in Japan — with, as both their Instagram feeds document, traveling companion and fellow "Bachelorette" contender Devin Strader, who won their season and controversially broke up with star Tran on the phone after  each proposed marriage to the other on the finale.