PEORIA MAGAZINE August 2022

Servers Chandler Simpson and Morgan Pfahl

of fellow passengers along the way, before inevitably ending the voyage at the destination he intended all along. Ummel’s story starts in Morton as the middle child in a family of five, a son of Kenneth – a construction worker, longtime Morton schools custodian and baseball coach – and Rose, who owned a hair salon in town. He was a lackadaisical student – school “got in the way of living” — but acquired a sense of what hewanted out of lifewhile cutting his teeth as a teen at Miller’s Cliftwood Restaurant in Morton and at Carnegie’s at Peoria’s elegant Pere Marquette Hotel. The kitchen became his preferred classroom. “I couldn’t hit a 100 m.p.h. fastball … Probably, by today’s standards, I would have been diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) times two,” he said. “But I knew I wanted to be a restaurateur. That was as close to a movie celebrity when I was a kid as you could get.” He also knew where he wanted to go to make that happen. This kid from little Morton wanted to go big-time, to New York’s famed Culinary Institute of America, the “other CIA.” He graduated in 1989 with a diploma, significantly more confidence for a guy who had learned to “fake it until you make it,” and some very well-connected friends. Few were as instrumental as the late Joseph Amendola, the legendary CIA ambassador, hospitality consultant and businessman. Ummel was on his way to

Toronto when Amendola intercepted him and put himon the road to Orlando instead, where he would ultimately land a job at the landmark Christini’s. Eventually, he would make his way back home, where others opened doors for him and provided assistance at critical moments – in particular he cites Ed LaHood of Food Service Equipment Corp. in Peoria. Now he’s looking to pay that forward. “As Mr. Christini used to say … a restaurant is a culmination of many things,” said Ummel. “The problem is that somany people excel at one, maybe the food, but the service sucks … I just try to do it like I would like. I like high quality food. I empower my staff … I want this to be a fun experience. “Everyone’s taken a little piece of ownership of the place.” Running a restaurant is an all encompassing job, of course, and it can take its toll. Ummel descr ibes himsel f as “dedicated to a fault. “Let me put it to you like this: If somebody called any one of my friends and said, ‘Did you hear that Troy had a heart attack at work? Died on the spot,’ nobody would be surprised.” He subscribes to a “farm mentality,” acquired growing up inMorton. “When there’s good weather, you’re out working ‘til midnight because it might rain tomorrow … I’ve never been that guy who can schedule like a dentist

four months out. A lot of my family time has suffered.” As a result, at 53, Ummel – with a wife, Monet, a commercial airplane pilot, and stepdaughter Merlot at home in Peoria and two adult children, son Joshua and daughter Marina, back in Florida — is contemplating retirement, “at least from this pace.” “There’s two types of success,” said Ummel. There’s the kind depicted by the statement, “I feel so bad for you, all you have is money.” And there’s the kind described by Warren Buffett, whom he paraphrases: “Pure success is to have the love of those you love.”

Troy and Monet Ummel

No doubt many central Illinoisans are praying they can get a fewmore meals in at Connected before Troy Ummel calls it a career.

Mike Bailey is editor in chief of Peoria Magazine

AUGUST 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE 17