Ep. 28 Joel Nickson of Wishbone Restaurant Chicago On How To Build Company Culture

Being an owner, operator, chef, creator and manager in the
restaurant business is really, really tough. The money is always
tight, customer's tastes change, and rent always rises. In
Chicago, the business is painfully competitive but most of all,
the dining experience can be positively brutal for the owner but
also for the customer. Not at Wishbone Restaurant, a Chicago
staple in part put on the map by Oprah Winfrey and her fans back
in the early 90s. 


Joel Nickson with his brothers, were able to exceed expectations
for all, not only with their delicious southern comfort food, but
with the welcoming vibe, the great service and  the culture
that created ease and relaxation for after church Sunday brunch
for Black Chicagoans, in a city with a violent history of racism,
segregation and plantation-like politics--that still exists
today. 


Joel shares how he built his family-owned business, Wishbone
Restaurant, from his roots as the picky-eater and dyslexic son of
a French immigrant artist mother, to working in the kitchens of
New York, to his two brothers pulling him to Chicago to help
create a new concept family-style restaurant that after two major
transitions, and luckily ended up dead-smack in the path of the
establishment of one of the most famous Black Americans in the
world that gave her famous stamp of approval: Oprah Winfrey.


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The Honest Field Guide is a production of brand strategy and
visual identity agency Birk Creative at
http://www.birkcreative.com. Episode song "Golden West" can be
downloaded on Apple here
https://music.apple.com/us/album/charmed-life/206143120?i=206143135https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-golden-west/212635734?i=212635810
and is written by Grant Birkenbeuel and JinJa Davis, from the
band Utah Carol http://www.utahcarol.com. Recorded at Stomping
Ground Studios. Podcast Editing by Jason Marck. Custom episode
artwork designed for our podcast created by American printmaker
and textile designer Jen Hewett https://jenhewett.com.


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