Chasing Goals

Chasing Goals Phil Olsen

“Until the lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

-African proverb The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017, this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising, illustrating and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie, and positive self-projection to author new life narratives.

Since January 2017, ConTextos has collaborated with the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office to implement Authors Circle in Division X of Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narrative about violence and peace-building, and help author a hopeful future for these young men, their families and our collective communities.

In collaboration with

Chasing Goals Phil Olsen

This story takes place around 2010. My friends and I were talking about opening up a bar for almost 6 months. We were still needing the money, because I calculated all the money that was needed for the start-up. I had found a good place in Lincoln Park. It was a bar called Lucille’s that had closed down about a month ago.

I was talking on the phone with someone very close to me who had just recently won a substantial amount of money playing scratch off lottery tickets. I told her all my plans and goals with this location I had found. She loved my plan and made a dea to lend me all the money to start up the place and was going to pay my monthly rent for a year in advance, because she believed I would succeed.

That next week after meeting with the building owner and getting my liquor license and everything, I was sitting in my new business. I had a lot off work ahead of me though, because I needed new floors, a new bar and a lot more work until I was going to be ready to open my doors for business.

The previous owners didn’t care about the place and I knew it was going to need a lot of work, but it was in worse shape than I thought.

Luckily my Mom used to own a construction company so she was able to design my bar and all the changes that needed to be done.

After a long few months of working on the inside and outside of the bar and a name change, we were finally ready to open our doors.

We decided to name the bar Dillinger’s after the mobster John Dillinger because he was shot in front of the Biograph Theater which was directly across the street from my bar. We worked out our food menu which was going to focus on a lot of different burgers which were named after different mobsters like we had a Bonnie and Clyde, a Ina Barker, a Gotti, Pretty Boy Floyd and Bugsy Seigel.

We had 15 different burgers including one called the Sears Tower which was a 2 pound burger that costed $30, but if you ate it in 15 minutes was free.

The place was finished and looked great. We had brand new stained wood flooring and a big new onyx bar that my Mom did an amazing job of picking out. I had a feeling I had never felt before, a mix between pleasure and satisfaction and excitement.

One thing I didn’t know was how hard the next 6 years were going to be.

By the night of my grand opening, I had put so much money into the place it was unsettling, but the place was doing well. This new beer called Batch 19 that was advertising as a pre-prohibition lager got Chalkie from the show boardwalk empire to appear at the bar and got a bunch of Ford Model T’s were parked in front of the bar for a photo shoot for my grand opening because I was the first bar to start selling its beer.

I was having mostly my friends bartending at this point and also my brother and sister were helping out a lot.

I could already see that I was going to need an organized staff and real cooks, because that was proving to be the hardest part with my main focus in the kitchen with my Mom and another one of my friends.

I remember the whole night of my grand opening just feeling very overwhelmed and scared, because I had to succeed.

I put everything I had into this place and I also had to succeed for my friend who believed in me and this business.

I wanted her to know she made a good decision.

That night when all the chaos died down was when my friend Frank introduced me to Don. I could tell right away that Don stunk of wealth with his gold Rolex and two thousand dollar suit.

He told me how he owned his own car dealership and a very well known bar in Wrigleyville. He explained that he liked my ideas and the whole concept off my bar and he wanted to help me out with some things I’m missing.

He told me he wanted to give himself a few days to think about the ideas he had so we exchanged information and he was gone.He is one of those people who oozes confidence and I had a good feeling about him right away. Frank secured my feeling when he told me Don was a good guy just trying to help the bar reach its potential.

In the next few weeks to come the business was going well, but it definitely could have been better. Don and I were spending a lot of time together and he kind of took me under his wing to teach me the basics about running a bar and the stuff I needed to do to make it better.

The first thing we started on was making new menus and finding full time “real� cooks for my kitchen. He served very good food at his bar and luckily he was able to get me 2 cooks from a big restaurant in the city that would alternate cooking at my place.

It was a job itself training the cooks on our menu and how I wanted things cooked and prepared.

When I bought the place the landlord told me briefly about Lincoln Park Fest which was a big festival they had every June on Lincoln Avenue from Fullerton Avenue to Halstead. My place was smack dead in the middle of it. What I found out from various people later on was that it was going to be crazy and I better be ready.

I ended up ordering 2 thousand dollars worth of liquor instead of the normal $200 I had been getting from our liquor distributor Wertz Beverages. I made sure to buy a lot of plastic cups because people are going to be able to leave with their drinks which usually is a big NO at bars. It was starting on a Friday and ending on that Sunday. I was having 3 bartenders which were mostly my friends and family for each day so 9 workers total.

I was 100 percent unprepared for that weekend.

It was complete chaos.

The first 3 or 4 hours I went through 4 kegs of beer and there were about 3 fights which my 2 doormen I had hired definitely were not ready for. The college DePaul is right down the block from the bar and all the students take Lincoln Park Fest pretty seriously. There were college girls wearing almost nothing everywhere which is going to give you business no matter what.

By 5pm there were kids passed out in the alley behind my bar which I had to take care of.

The fire marshall was already at my place twice counting people to make sure I wasn’t over capacity.

I was dodging tickets left and right.

By the time the first night was over, I had a bartender quit because she couldn’t handle the overwhelming flow of drunk people and she nearly had a nervous breakdown. I went through almost all off our liquor, which was the biggest problem I had to deal with. And a kid who was definitely on drugs set off a fire extinguisher and sprayed my doormen because we told him he was cut off from drinking from my bar which I have to admit looking back on it now was extremely funny.

The next day halfway through the night my whole POS system went down. A POS system is the computer system you see at every bar that you put your orders in and it had all your prices in it.

It’s basically the heartline of the bar. If you don’t have it, you can’t charge credit cards or put in food orders.

So I had to take cash only and evert receipt and order had to be done by hand which lost me a ton of money and made the weekend a living nightmare. I had to help bartend the rest of the weekend because I was so understaffed and unprepared but somehow me and my mom got through it.

I remember after we did last call on Sunday that I felt like I ran a marathon. It was non-stop insanity from 9am till 2am all three nights and I slept maybe 8 hours the whole weekend, but I can’t describe the feeling I felt. I was proud of all my workers for sticking it out and I felt like a million pounds were lifted off my back for surviving the craziest weekend of my life.

I learned a lot about the business that weekend, but the most important thing was in this business always be ready for the unexpected and always be ready for the worst possible outcome, because that seemed to happen a lot. It’s still a learning process in the end, just like any other job/business. I remember after that weekend I had finally made some money so I got the few interior things I was missing which was a jukebox, an ATM and new TV’s.

Then I got a brand new Dillinger’s Bar and Grill sign which I was really proud of. The I’s in Dillinger’s was bullets and our slogan was “a place for public enemy’s” which was also on the sign. I got the whole front of the bar repainted a deep black color and the pillars were a dark maroon and it turned out great. I knew I made the right choice when tour buses that were passing the place that Dillinger was killed across the street were stopping to come take pictures in front of my bar.

It wasn’t long before we became a staple in the Lincoln Park area. The cast of the Million Dollar Quartet were just some of our regulars. We were well known for our burgers, so the famous band would often show up after playing a show at the Lincoln Hall, which was one of my neighbors.

We were the most notoriously known for our Christmas day lockdown party that I did every year. It was more for family and friends, than customers. I would lock the the doors to the public and it would be a big party. It became well known to my regular customers and people around Lincoln Park because of the crazy stories that people that attended would share.

Those are the best memories I have of owning the place, spending time with the people I love and care about. I made relationships while having that place that I wouldn’t trade for the world. The experiences and life lessons I learned there were worth my weight in gold.

I had the bar for seven awesome years, until the landlord Earl suddenly and tragically passed away. His two sons inherited the building and they hated me from the beginning. So, unfortunately they chased me away. I wasn’t done, I had my eye on a new place that made more financial sense, but it ended up falling through in the end.

I learned a lot of lessons throughout all of this: You need to take risks in order to succeed in life and in business, because you won’t be successful if you don’t try. You are going to fail at things in life, but that’s not what defines you.

What defines you is how you bounce back from those failures, and how many times you can fall and get back up. That’s what makes you unique.

Phil Norwood Park Holiday Inn’s and Miller Lite House of chaos.

Full of power, desire and heart The ocean’s current Always pushing forward.

Christmas dinners and family parties Olsen’s and such.

Hockey nights in Canada and pond hockey Stand up for yourself and work hard.

Irish Catholics Northwest side of Chicago Potato pancakes, homemade soup Winter hockey games Summer Cubs games On top of the piano Never turning our backs on each other.