Oh my God!

Reading classified help wanted ads...applying for jobs.  What a wild experience.  I haven't done it since 2008.  So stress-inducing....how desperate am I?  Would I do this one?  Oh, no.  I would NOT do that one.

I scroll through jobs, experiment with search terms and ponder new possibilities (maybe I could get a remote job!)  I'm re-learning how to read between the lines and decipher the job descriptions.  For example, "demo chef" isn't a chef at all, it's a person who heats up little bits of sausage in warehouse stores and offers you a sample while you stand there and block everyone else's way while they're trying to shop.  

Yeah, no thanks.  Not quite that desperate.  Yet.

Scrolling through and picturing yourself doing the various jobs, imagining what it might be like, can be kind of an invigorating, hopeful experience, or it can be a total nightmare that causes you to think to yourself "is this really the point I've come to in my life?  That I'm considering doing THAT?"

And all that in a span of five minutes.  Yikes!  Just a little stressful.

I'm in the "taking shots" phase right now.  Finding jobs that sound super cool and interesting with good salaries and benefits that I may or may not be fully qualified for, but hey, click click click, submit a resume, answer a few questions about my demographics and I guess we'll see.  

I applied for a job as a Culinary Manager for World Central Kitchen that entails packing a go bag, being ready to ship out within four hours to a disaster relief site somewhere in the world for weeks at a time dealing with "high-stress, dynamic environments affected by natural disasters or conflicts", and to oversee production kitchens in "in challenging environments with austere living conditions. For example, responders may not have access to running water, communications, or electricity and they may have to sleep outdoors and use bucket toilets."

Sound cool?  This appeals to me somehow.  I found myself really wanting this job.  Definitely would be a change of pace!

I actually think I'd be really good at it.  My experience bumming my way around Europe on the cheap and summers camping while following the Grateful Dead around the midwest has made me pretty comfortable with "austere" living conditions.  The ten years I spent working Lollapalooza, cooking for 400,000 people in a 10'x10' square booth in the east gutter of Columbus Drive in Grant Park taught me how to improvise in the field, rig up malfunctioning equipment, and keep my calm when things are swirling uncontrollably around me.  We dealt with floods, epic lightning storms, a derecho wind, multiple full park evacuations, refrigerator trucks failing in the 100 degree heat, electricity issues, propane equipment malfunctions, and managed to still keep cranking out the food and giving customers friendly service.

So I feel like it's stuff I can do and that I kind of get a thrill from being able to do.  And the fact that it would be working for such a great organization and helping folks in need would be such a wonderful motivating factor for doing the work.  I was picturing myself leading an international ragtag squad of pirate cooks like I was Duval in Apocalypse Now. Confidently striding through his zone of control as explosions rain all around, giving commands, never flinching once, clearly pumped on the adrenaline, the ability to function amongst such chaos.  "I love the smell of polenta in the morning" I would say.  

Or something.

Anyway, it's a fantasy, and looking at the classified help wanted ads is kind of an exercise in fantasizing, mentally trying on a bunch of new hats and seeing how they feel, and part of the whole PROCESS that I'm fully in now and fully trying to embrace as it's all part of what I need to go through to move forward and get some distance from the Edzo's era of my life.

Read More 0 comments | Posted by Eddie Lakin

 started 12/13/2024

Part of the whole process of closing a restaurant I've been running for 15 years is clearing out.  I'm losing a lot of storage space that I've taken for granted for quite a while so I now find myself sifting through all the stuff of my life.  And that's a real process in and of itself, I'm discovering.

Every object, box, milk crate is being looked at critically.  Keep?  Dump?  Sell?

So, that's meant a lot of Facebook marketplace listings, cleaning out my entire house to make room for whatever incoming unpartables I deem worthy, and even going down the rabbit hole of scanning old family photos into digital format.

This restaurant closure has coincided with a whole bunch of other life-changes for me.  My parents just recently moved to a smaller, one-story situation, so they ended up unloading a lot of the "stuff of life" onto me, and that included a few boxes of family photos.  Rabbit holes = distraction = not thinking about being unemployed!  I'm in! 

I take a carload of stuff from the restaurant every day, unload it into my garage, and sift through the stuff in the evenings after work.  It's wild how going through the stuff you shoved into a milkcrate decades ago can bring you right back to that moment and how you felt about yourself and your life at that particular time.  My high school letters (never got the jacket), a few game balls from little league, weird random highlighted scrawlings I saved from college, zines I bought in Barcelona, handwritten menus from the restaurant I worked at in Bologna....Every single item brings memories, feelings, smells, insecurities, situations flooding back.  I can still remember the musty smell of the sub-basement I had to climb a ladder down into to get Francesco the menu paper so he could write the menu for that night's service.   

At 55 years old, you start to let go of some of the sentimental attachments to the STUFF.  Especially after seeing my parents' accumulation and how hard they ended up working to thin it out when they moved.  Can't take it with you, right?  Just stuff.  So I've been doing a lot of letting go.

And that's hard.  Because when you toss certain things into the garbage, it often means letting go of the dream you had around that thing.  The potential.  The use you could've gotten out of that thing, the cool project you were going to use it for.

Or sometimes, it's the memories around it.  As I tossed the last of my bootleg Grateful Dead cassettes with their trippy hand-drawn paper sleeves emblazoned with "Ithaca" or the "Warfield 1980", I felt the sting of letting go of the memories of duping those tapes, drawing those sleeves, and listening to those shows with friends I've slipped out of touch with. 

But the cassettes are gone and I still have the memories. I hadn't listened to the tapes for multiple decades. I don't even have a cassette player anymore.  They're just chunks of plastic taking up space because of sentimentality. 

I took a huge 60-lb bin full of my beloved beat-writer-era books to the used bookstore thinking I was dropping valuable treasures on them and realized halfway through that they were basically doing me a FAVOR by paying me $4.50 for all of it.  Including the bin.  

Parting with the memories of the time in my life when I read all those books, though, and how it felt to live vicariously through those writers felt almost like abandoning a future potential version of myself.  There was a long lost loose dream still kicking around in there where maybe someday I would be the protagonist in a Kerouac novel.  An artist.  A traveler.   Free spirit.  A Writer.   Someone who does something creative, original, and makes a mark on the world with it.  Something that's maybe borderline important, even if the world doesn't fully appreciate it as being that at the time I'm doing it.

 Folks who care about me would probably say that's exactly what I did by creating Edzo's and running it with all my heart and soul for 15 years.

That's a comforting thought as I continue to sift, assess, ponder, and go down the rabbit holes of my life, flashing back to my past selves back when I was full of plans, potential and dreams vs. where I find myself at 55.   Hopefully I can allow myself to buy into that thought. 

Read More 3 comments | Posted by Eddie Lakin

12/12/2024

And so...that's the big question, then.  What next?

How am I going to earn money to pay my bills?  Can I salvage anything from the Edzo's Burger Shop brand that I put every part of myself into and all the good will I've amassed for it over these 15 years?  The thousands of social media followers, the hundreds of (mostly good) reviews, the "intellectual property"...does any of that have any value going forward?  

That's my next challenge.  To figure that out.  

In 2022, when we were first re-opening after having been closed for 9 months and remodeling in an attempt to "re-boot" in a post-covid world, I did a GoFundMe fundraiser to try to offset some expenses I was dealing with to get my exhaust hood fixed.  Our folks really rallied and I managed to raise nearly $20k in a time when the restaurant wasn't open, I wasn't generating any revenue, and money was flying out to contractors and repair techs at an alarming rate.  I was pleasantly shocked at how much money I was able to raise to get me out of the jam I was in.  And folks were happy to give it.

I started thinking around then about the sentiment that existed out in the community that would bring about such an outpouring of generosity from folks, what that meant, and whether this sort of model was going to become normal or expected for restaurants at some point in the near future.

We're all familiar with the concept of patronage, where donors support individuals or organizations that they value as being a part of the wider community, and it's long been accepted for artists, but it's not a model that's been employed for businesses that would normally be for-profit, like restaurants.  At least not that I've seen.  

But if we value the role of certain establishments in our society, if we value certain traditions, certain cultural institutions, shared experiences, or equitably-accessible public spaces, we need to support them in order for them to survive.  We all agree that city parks are important so we prevent the impact of the free market from making the land so valuable that it all gets bought and covered up with buildings. 

Maybe at some point we will reach a point where beloved stores, restaurants, or venues come to be seen in the same regard and we stop allowing them to exist or vanish based solely on the whims of capitalism and the marketplace.

 Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying taxpayer dollars should be given to keep Edzo's open because we're some kind of special restaurant.  Or that restaurants should operate as non-for-profit charities because they do so much good.

  What I'm really doing here is trying to figure out whether what I have focused my life on for 30+ years--hospitality-- still has value in this world.  And if it does, where does that value come from and how do I and other folks in the hospitality industry pay my bills based on what I can still bring to the table...(and where IS the table, even?)

Is it via social media?  Maybe I should start a TikTok channel and try to monetize my social media presence?  I mean, people make actual money from that, right?  So I've heard.  But honestly I can't even fathom how.

The idea of doing another GoFundMe is appealing in many ways, but I'm struggling with how to FRAME it.  Other than just asking for money to pay my bills while I search for a new location for Edzo's and try to develop different revenue streams, I don't yet have much of a plan.  Can you make a GoFundMe to buy yourself time to make a plan?  That seems pretty vague, I'm not sure folks will buy into that.  Fund my pivot?  Too presumptuous?  Maybe.

Between the GoFundMe we did a few years ago, though, and the crowds that turned out for our final week to tell me what Edzo's has meant to their lives over the years, I can't deny the fact that there's a community that's been formed around what I created.  And I'm not ready to just let that dissipate into the air and float away.  Community and these relationships we've all formed over 15 years seem really important right now, both in general, in our society, and for me personally, at the turning point moment I find myself in at 55 years old.  I'm going to do what I can to keep hold of it and nurture it.

One of the guiding principles of how I've run my business over the last 15 years has been "be yourself".  I wanted to present an authentic representation of who I truly am through my restaurant and I figured folks that "get it" would appreciate it for what it was and, for some folks, it wouldn't be to their personal taste and that's ok too.  Eventually, the result of that became kind of a self-"curated" group of folks who liked me for just exactly who I am.  The gratification I get from that has been like nothing I've ever felt in my entire life.  It's been so validating.  As Sally Field famously said..."you like me.  you really like me!"

So if this resonates with you, thanks for supporting me and my vision over the years.   I'm exited to share with you what comes next.  

Once I figure it out.

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Eddie Lakin

originally written on 12/11/2024

 Well, it's been 12 years since the last blog entry here, so I guess I can't complain too much.  It's been a good run.

I figured I would bring things full circle and document the closing of a restaurant in the same forum I documented opening Edzo's 15 years ago in 2009.

I feel compelled to say all the things...thanking customers, employees, the community that supported us over the years.  And I will say all that stuff, in person and on social media.  This blog has always been about the stuff that's harder to say, though.  The internal conflicts, the doubts, the vulnerable stuff.  So I'm gonna stick to that right now here.

The last 4-5 years since Covid have been wild.  I can't attribute the restaurant closing entirely to Covid, but it definitely made a huge impact and has been the focal point (whether dealing with it or wondering if this will be the year things "finally go back to normal").  They never will.

I had grand plans prior to the pandemic hitting in 2020.  I had taken out loans to expand, I had multiple new locations I was considering and one deal signed for a food hall in the Loop.  Once in the pandemic, I availed my business of the loans available to sustain us.  I tried to run things in a way that was consistent with my personal values so didn't fire anyone or cut hours.  I figured we would just ride things out.

A lot happened over the years.  A lot changed.  There are probably 20 blog posts worth of material that I should've written.  Maybe I'll catch up. 

The biggest thing that changed, though, is that we stopped making money.   I'm really not a business guy.  I'm a chef and I love cooking and sharing good food with people, being hospitable and making folks feel good.  For the first 10 years or so of running Edzo's, my main financial metric was "is my bank balance going up"?  And it usually was.  So I didn't go deeper into it.

When we started, in 2009, we used paper tickets that I wrote the order on.  We handed the paper down the line and the cooks made it.  I would ring up the sale on a manual cash register with 1000 buttons, each of which was programmed to be one menu item.  Credit cards were swiped on a separate little box connected to the telephone line.  It was a different world.  Things were simpler.  

Seeing the bank balance go backwards over the last four years, taking out loan after loan and seeing them slowly disappear little by little has been excruciating.  I've raised prices to be in line with what we're now paying, I've streamlined, I've reconfigured to be more delivery/pickup-facing, I've tried new marketing, I've instagrammed every day.  The numbers just keep going the wrong way.  And the loans and relief programs have gone away.  It's been demoralizing.

Owning a business is a real double-edged sword.  You get all the credit when things go well, accolades, best-of lists, congratulations and that all becomes a part of you.  YOU did that.  You start to sometimes believe your own hype, even if you strive to stay humble and not let it go to your head.  It's impossible for it not to because when you run a place and you're the face of the place, the namesake, it's all on the line.  If they love the restaurant, the experience, your food, they love YOU.  

But then when they don't....well, it really sucks.  It's impossible not to take it as a personal rejection.  Even though I tell myself, no, it's Covid, it's people's and society's habits changing, it's inflation, it's increased property taxes...whatever.  and that's all completely TRUE, of course.  But then I drive by other restaurants that are still jammed every day even with high prices and can't help but think..... how did I manage to fuck this up?

But beyond that feeling of personal failure and rejection, there are so many other levels.  I mean, I'm losing my job too, and my only source of income.  Well, to be honest, I've barely been paying myself for the last couple years.   My personal income on my 2023 taxes was in the low 30's and this year I've paid myself $13,100.  Yikes.   I've been supplementing the restaurant and keeping myself afloat with personal savings for some time now and hoping things would turn around. 

And then there's the level of feeling like I'm disappointing so many people.  The customers who will miss us when we're gone.  My employees who depend on us to be able to earn a living.  The banks, creditors and vendors who call and email every single day at every phone number about the money I should be paying them.   I've been doing the "steal from Peter to pay Paul" dance for a couple years now.  Sending checks when online payments would be quicker, letting certain bills be late for a while until they start sending second notices, counting on the sales from the coming weekend to pay the bills that are due last week.  It's been exhausting.  

 I have a hard time separating the "business" end of financials from the feelings they stir up in me.  So when I get a call about a past due electric bill or something, I have to deal with the actual logistical concern and handle it so as to keep the lights on, but as the owner, as the guy responsible for not paying his electric bill for months to the point that they call and actually threaten to disconnect it, this rush of adrenaline hits me in a wave of "shit, I'm in trouble" thoughts.   It's impossible not to feel like a fuck up, a failure, an idiot who doesn't know how to run a business and this is why you're closing.  

Even when I know it was a conscious choice, that I was doing what I felt I needed to do in order to stretch funds until things finally turned around and was painfully aware of how overdue the bill was, I still can't help but feel that way when that call or "final notice" comes, it feels so emblematic.  And it's just so demoralizing.

Because it starts to spiral and every little thing becomes a reminder of another aspect of this 15-year endeavor that's going wrong, every little minor repair I can't afford becomes an existential crisis for both the restaurant and for me personally.  If I can't get this piece of equipment fixed, then I can't operate and continue to bring in money.  If my cooler needs to be serviced and the health inspector comes, I could get shut down temporarily, which I can't afford.  But I also can't afford to proactively fix the cooler.

 I run numbers comparing year to year, week to week, holiday weekend to holiday weekend looking for reasons to be optimistic and keep things going until "things go back to normal", I try to figure out ways to cut labor costs a little more, reducing hours enough to help make a difference in my bottom line but not so much that it causes one of my reliable employees to leave seeking more hours.

All of it just leads to the inevitable conclusion:  there's no use throwing good money after bad.  Business isn't ever coming back.  I need to face reality.

Read More 5 comments | Posted by Eddie Lakin