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.
I definitely see a difference since 2020 in downtown Evanston. Many of the clientele you had the first 10 years have converted to a work from home format (myself included) and chasing debt isn’t tenable. I’ll miss your establishment and hope in the long run things come back to some semblance of “normalcy”
In the meantime don’t lose your passion of making great food and hope to see you in the near future!
I'm sorry to hear that you are closing up shop. I wish you the best.
It is the nature of the business and the current times! You are still good at what you do and will move on to something else!
Thank you for your honesty and your commitment to Evanston for the past 15 years. This may be hard to believe but your story reminds me of the importance of resilience, following your dreams, and knowing when to pivot. I hope you can appreciate what you brought to Evanston. Good luck to you on your next chapter.
Thanks for sharing. You’re definitely not alone in so many of these feelings. Courage.