Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | winter 2006
Kurt Wiese

 


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Kurt Wiese: Lunch rush

It’s 10 a.m., and Kurt Wiese is counting money from last night’s bar receipts. Back in the kitchen, soup bubbles madly on the stove. A cook prepares leafy greens that will be used in the 100-or-so sandwiches that will be consumed during the lunch rush. Someone runs a broom beneath the bar stools; someone else washes the glassware. The wait staff rolls silverware with linen napkins.

There are 2,128 restaurants in the city of Chicago, and every one has a story to tell. This particular eatery, Cavanaugh’s Bar and Restaurant, is located in downtown Chicago, in the heart of the financial district in the historic Monadnock Building.

The building is on the architectural tour of Chicago, and it’s 108 years old. It covers a city block, and Cavanaugh’s is just one little piece – a bar on one side, restaurant on the other. It has dark wood with brass accents. It’s what you’d expect from an independently-owned restaurant that’s a stone’s throw away from the federal building and the Chicago Board of Trade.

Wiese (’83 hotel & restaurant management) bought the restaurant 16 years ago. He used to have partners, but now he owns it all by himself. It’s a Monday-through-Friday kind of place; nothing much goes on in this area of the city on the weekends. There are eight or 10 restaurants in this area, Wiese says, not counting fast food. Customers come from a six-block area.

“Half the people eat here because they’re hungry,” Wiese says. “You and I are friends, we’re going to lunch, two iced teas, two chicken sandwiches. It’s not that difficult.

“The other half is sort of a low-end business lunch. You’re not going to spend two hours having lunch. You can have a glass of wine, a piece of fish, and do your business in less than an hour.”

Cavanaugh’s lunch crowd has changed, he says. More financial people work at home. People have been laid off. It’s hard to tell who’s who.

“It used to be the blue suit was the person who made all the money,” he says. “People are more casual now. Pretty much the only people wearing suits are bankers and attorneys going to court.”



The restaurant opens at 11 a.m., but it takes awhile for things to really start hopping. By 11:30 a.m., Wiese has seated four men dressed in casual business attire who order glasses of Guinness with lunch, a woman in a dress who reads as she eats her salad, a guy on a cell phone, and two women who hug each other as they meet at the front entrance.

By noon, groups of people are filling the tables and booths, and a loud, pleasant hum of conversation fills the restaurant.

“Two for lunch?” Wiese asks two regular customers. “No,” one woman jokes. “We’re just standin’ here.”
Wiese answers the phone, leads people to their tables, oversees the new chef in the kitchen, and makes sure the wait staff is keeping up with orders. Nobody has to wait for a table; people are getting their food quickly and going back to the office.

Wiese used to manage Houlihan’s restaurants in Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and he says there are advantages to working for a chain.

“You really don’t have to think that much, right? I mean, you don’t write menus, you don’t change things, you get stuff sent to you. You basically execute. Here, you eat what you kill. If there’s anything left, that’s what you get.”

By 1:30 p.m. the lunch rush is over. A young family is lingering in a booth, and there’s still some activity in the bar. Most of the waiters and kitchen staff will be leaving soon; many have other jobs to go to. Wiese finally has time to sit down and talk.

In two hours, Cavanaugh’s has served more than 150 people. That’s a good day, and Wiese seems pleased.
“Nothing’s ever the same,” he says. “You never know when you open the doors what’s really gonna happen.”

 

 

Bonus Feature | Recipes from the restaurants and inns featured in the article