Family is the single word describes the goal and mission of Little Chicagos. Managed by Aaron and Rhonda Blake, the husband-wife duo aims to create an atmosphere full of family.
They strive to replicate the feeling of being with family, starting with scratch-cooking in a laughter-filled kitchen and extending to the Italian cafe design of the dining room.
“People can just come and have a good time and celebrate with friends and family and forget all the worries in the world and have a little safe place where they can come and get away,” Aaron said.
A goal for Aaron is to provide a family to his employees or customers, especially if they haven’t felt that connection, through the experience Little Chicagos provides.
“That's another huge reward because that's a goal that I've had … to be able to be the best boss, the best person, [and] give people opportunities to come to work and enjoy themselves — wake up every morning and want to go to work,” Aaron said.
The family Italian-American restaurant was brought to fruition by concept developer Dan Stackpoole, making Little Chicagos the 25th restaurant he’s owned.
Growing up in Detroit Italian restaurants, Stackpoole has a special connection with the food.
Little Chicagos’ signature pizza, being the namesake of the restaurant, is a Chicago-style deep dish personal pan pizza, which Stackpoole has been making for over 25 years.
“It's all in the name Little Chicagos,” Stackpoole said. "Little Chicago pizzas [are] our forte. It's what we're famous for. Instead of waiting 40 minutes for it to bake, like you would in Chicago, these bake in about 15 minutes, and you get pizza [in] half the time.”
With Stackpoole’s experience in the field, he’s been working with owner Summer Hellis for around 11 years before starting Little Chicagos.
The Stackpoole-Hellis partnership began with a restaurant in Pendleton, Indiana. They also have a history in Muncie, when they opened their restaurant Osteria 32, a former Italian restaurant that closed five years ago.
Stackpoole and Hellis opened Osteria 32 — with the help of Mike Martin and the Common Market — because they’ve “always wanted to help Muncie grow,” Stackpoole said. Along with the love of food, that’s why they opened Little Chicagos.
Stackpoole was excited about a downtown space, with the restaurant located on South Walnut Street, due to the growing downtown culture.
Since opening August 15, the restaurant has been busy, due to the trust Stackpoole and Hellis forged with clientele at Osteria 32, as well as with homemade food and the downtown culture.
“People really want an independent restaurant option, scratch cooking versus the chain restaurants on McGalliard [Road], and there's a big, vibrant downtown community in Muncie,” Stackpoole said.
With Stackpoole and Hellis owning multiple restaurants across the state, they’ve adopted a “hands-off owner style,” and Little Chicagos managers Aaron and Rhonda are in charge of the restaurant and its 12 employees.
Having met Aaron through a shared love of flying and getting to know each other while repairing a plane together, Stackpoole broached the subject of opening a restaurant in Muncie with Aaron.
Due to a back injury and surgery, as well as having to be on the road for his job, Aaron spoke to Rhonda, and the both of them decided it was time to try the restaurant.
“I need people that can manage to run the restaurant without me having to babysit them. I can trust them,” Stackpoole said. “The idea was to come up with a concept that somebody from zero food restaurant experience, I can put them in and train and teach them how to run.
A part of the reason Stackpoole worked with the Blakes to create Little Chicagos was to forge a legacy and to leave something for the Blakes’ children, having a form of the “American Dream.”
Aaron, originally from Winchester, Indiana, and Rhonda from Selma, Indiana, have a lot of love for Delaware County and positively contributed to their home county, having been active in the community and connecting with people through the schools and churches.
Running the restaurant now, the Blakes have had former teachers, classmates and other community members come to the restaurant giving them and the restaurant an outpour of support.
“They want to see us thrive,” Rhonda said.
Aaron describes his biggest reward — within the span the restaurant has been open — to be their first customers, two Muncie Central High School students walking through downtown seeing what they could get for $20.
“Providing that, it's not all about the big sales; it's about just being open to everybody in the community, offering them the highest quality food that you can get anywhere around here and also being staffed with some of the greatest cooks in Muncie,” Aaron said.
To accomplish this, the staff takes time to make the food. Rhonda, who makes the desserts along with other tasks, makes their tiramisu in four days. On average, it takes 30 minutes for customers to get food, though there is work in fine-tuning the restaurant’s processes and crunching the timelines.
“You need to slow down when you come in here,” Stackpoole said. “This is not fast food. We don't do huge carry-out orders. The customer dining and restaurant takes priority.”
Aaron and Rhonda describe Little Chicagos as a mom-and-pop restaurant, and slowing down contributes to the mom-and-pop feel of the restaurant.
With Little Chicagos being open for a few months now, and the Blakes and the staff continuously growing, the Blakes, as first-time business owners, have seen a lot of changes in the restaurant.
“Seeing it from what it was before, and working through all of the different changes and the different remodeling and different ideas, to just stand back when the dining room is full and everybody has a plate full of food and be like, ‘Wow. We did this from start to finish,’” Rhonda said.
Open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., the Blakes want customers to look forward to “a completely out-of-this-town environment,” along with the weekly cannoli flavors Rhonda makes.
“[Rhonda] and I just have a family business that the community could come and enjoy and be a place to leave all your life's worries at the door and enjoy good food,” Aaron said.
Contact Hannah Amos via email at hannah.amos@bsu.edu or on X @Hannah_Amos_394.
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