FoodMix Marketing’s celebration of our 25th anniversary has led us to reflect on the power of Brand Love. One of our own, Jeremy Anderson, is also celebrating a major milestone—20 years owning and operating a restaurant in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. He offered up his own Brand Love confessions.
So, for the past 20 years, my wife and I have owned and operated a tiny restaurant in Chicago called Café Ciao. When I say tiny, I mean eight tables and a four-seat bar tiny. Honestly, it’s less “restaurant” and more of a “lemonade stand with a liquor license,” held together by Scotch tape, wishful thinking, and the stubborn belief that tonight will be calm. It never is. And yet, after all this time, I confess I still love it with all my heart. Because what this place gives me is more than a job…it gives me the real fulfillment that comes with living completely and undeniably in the moment.
Working in a restaurant this size, with a staff that is often just me and my wife, forces a level of focus that my daydream-prone brain never naturally developed. This is not a place where you drift. This is a place where you take the order for the four-top at table 4, shake Espresso Martinis for table 2, reset table 5, plow through hand-washing a mountain of wine glasses, and remind your wife to drink water as she cooks literally every dish in an 8×8 galley kitchen…sometimes simultaneously. If you lose focus, even for a second, the whole operation wobbles like a life-size Jenga tower.
I’ve always heard that limitations are where the best ideas come from, and after two decades of living inside a logistical puzzle box, I can confirm it’s true. Constraints force you to get scrappy, innovate, and find solutions you’d never consider if you had all the space, staff or sanity in the world. They sharpen your instincts, narrow your vision, and reveal what actually matters. As the character Varla in the movie Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! puts it, far more bluntly, “I never try anything. I just do it.” Honestly? That line might as well be our mission statement.
So that’s my confession: Running a restaurant for 20 years is equal parts boot camp, improv class and fever dream, but somehow we’ve made it work. The tight quarters and tighter timelines have taught me to think fast, move faster, and occasionally just shrug and embrace the madness. Because, in the end, limitations aren’t roadblocks…they’re rocket fuel. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I’m speed-washing wine glasses at 9:17 p.m. while prepping dessert for table 6…and loving every ridiculous minute of it.
