FSR September 2022

ONE OFF HOSPI TAL I T Y

employees wrote an open letter citing pay cuts, understaffing, and other negative practices during the pandemic. “I always go back to that time when we made those decisions to pay peo ple’s health insurance and some of those things,” Madia says. “You really didn’t

its place: the second Avec. Browne says the group was already thinking the River North neighborhood could be ripe for another location of the Midwest-meets-Mediterranean concept. And asMadia points out, they were stuck with the space, one way or another. “We signed a lease for 25 [years]. How are we going to walk away from that? So we put our think ing caps on and worked our way through it. Was it stressful? Abso lutely,” Madia says. “[But] there’s no going, ‘I’m out. See you later.’ Plus, it’s not who we are as a group.” More than a year into the switch from Pacific Standard Time, Avec River North has become a resound ing success story. And after a year of upheaval and loss, the new res taurant marked the start of a new chapter in the group’s evolution. “It did feel like the turning point with the pandemic. Once things were getting underway, there was a point where it’s like, ‘OK, it’s still going on, but we are getting for ward momentum,’” Browne says. ROUNDING THE CORNER Just months after Avec River North made its grand debut, One Off Hospitality opened another concept on the eighth-floor roof top of the same building. Bar Avec features amenu of Iberian-inspired small plates and drinks and serves lunch, brunch, and dinner (Avec on the ground floor only serves din ner). And while an open-air patio restaurant/bar might seem a poor investment in a city known for long, frigid winters, Covid has changed guest—and restaurant—attitudes. “We’re still working all those dynam ics through, but just look at the industry with the pandemic. It encouraged every one to do more outside. So it almost dou bled everybody’s restaurant size,” Madia said. It’s not quite double for the two sis ter properties (the ground-floor restau rant clocks in around 5,000 square feet and the rooftop bar at about 1,200), but it’s still a substantial amount.

Expansion has continued in 2022 with its in-house baking program land ing a brick-and-mortar retail shop in West Town. For the past eight years, Pub lican Quality Bread, under the direction of head baker Wade, has supplied One Off concepts, as well as 75 other res taurants and retailers, with wholesale baked goods. Now, as a consumer-fac ing establishment, the bakery/café will serve everything from breakfast pas tries and tartines to loaves of bread and sandwiches. Publican Quality Bread marks a first for One Off both in terms of category (bakery) and location (West Town). As Browne points out, Blackbird opened in theWest Loop long before it was the bus tling neighborhood it is today. It was a similar dynamic for Publican in Fulton Market and Big Star in Wicker Park. “They basically were the pioneers in some of these neighborhoods that are now just f lying,” she says. “They are known for going into a neighborhood and putting up a tent and just starting restaurant after restaurant.” At the height of dine-in restrictions, the group traveled even farther afield for its Suburban Supper Club. The brainchild of Browne, this program brought online orders from across the One Off system to central meeting places in about a dozen Chicago suburbs. “This is a very cosmopolitan group; it’s very Chicago-centric. But believe it or not, we were able to create over 3,000 additional customers through the subur ban dinner series,” Browne says. “It kept our people working, and it uplifted our teams. Even myself and Donnie would go do this, and it just felt good.” As is the case with many restaurant groups, One Off Hospitality is inextrica bly linked to its hometown. Special cir cumstances like the Suburban Supper Club might extend beyond downtown areas, but when asked whether the com pany had ever considered relocating the business during Covid, Madia’s answer is an unequivocal no. “We’re not going to pack up our fam ilies and move to Florida,” he says. “It’s kind of like Custer’s Last Stand, isn’t it?

know what was ahead. So maybe we should have even been communicat ing, ‘We don’t know what’s ahead,’ but I do think that we learned some valuable lessons about improving transparency, communicating on a more timely basis, and then just identifying when you don’t know something, say, ‘We don’t know right now.’” After a lengthy pause in service, Pacific Standard Time made the closure permanent in early 2021, but by Febru ary, another One Off property had taken

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