CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The James Beard Foundation has recognized a decades-old Lula Cafe in Logan Square restaurant as one of the best establishments in the country when it comes to hospitality.
The announcement, which came on Wednesday, is a big deal. The James Beard Awards are often described as the Oscars of the food industry. Lula Cafe Executive Chef and Owner Jason Hammel called the nomination an incredible honor for his staff.
“It’s a great way to celebrate our 25th year,” he said. “I’m super proud of my team.”
One of the people leading that team is General Manager Leizl Basilio. She told WBBM that even before she joined the team a little over two years ago, she felt like she was part of the Lula Cafe community.
Whether she was dining solo or celebrating birthdays, Basilio said she regularly found herself gravitating toward the restaurant.
“It was just always a super special place,” she said.
Inside Lula Cafe, Basilio said they view themselves as a “small restaurant that serves the neighborhood we’re in.” Wednesday’s nomination for Outstanding Hospitality, she added, belongs to staff and to those who have supported them day in and day out.
“It really seems like it’s 25 years in the making,” she said. “When you meet someone and you talk about Lula, you can’t help but think about all of the special moments that make you feel like Lula belongs a little bit to you, and that’s such a cool thing to be a part of.”
Looking back on when he first opened the restaurant in 1999, Hammel said he didn’t fully grasp what it meant at the time to provide hospitality at the professional level.
“When we started, we were really creating a space for the neighborhood, for people that were in our community that we felt close to, and then that community just got bigger and bigger,” he said.
They did, though, understand the importance of connecting deeply with their guests. Over the years they managed to improve at what Hammel described as “the craft of hospitality.”
“Hospitality’s not just the servers,” he said. “If you wait too long to get your food, or if you don’t like your food, or if the plate isn’t clean when it comes out or if the restaurant doesn’t have the right vibe when you enter, those are all things that take away from the experience of hospitality. It’s truly a team effort.”
When it comes to cultivating that type of environment inside Lula Cafe, Hammel said it all starts with how they care for their employees.
His approach sounds fairly simple, in theory: If the team feels supported in what they do, and if they’re passionate about the work, then Hammel said hospitality toward guests will be a “natural extension of the care that we give each other.”
In practice, he said it requires everyone to show up for each other every day.
“If you hire people and leave them without training and resources; if you don’t staff appropriately; if you don’t stand up for them when they need to be stood up for, then they’re not going to feel good in their work,” he said. “It’s about showing up for the team day in and day out, every minute of the day.”
For Hammel, who's previously been a James Beard Award finalist for Best Chef in the Great Lakes region, the fact that this nomination honors the whole team has added another level of excitement.
“This is something I can share with every single person that works here, from the dishwashers to the bus team, to the servers, to the cooks,” he said.
The James Beard Foundation will announce the winners of the 2024 James Beard Awards on June 10 at a ceremony in Chicago.
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