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For nearly three decades, Donnie Madia has shaped how Chicago eats, drinks, and gathers. As owner and partner of One Off Hospitality Group, he is the co-founder behind Blackbird, avec, Publican, Big Star, and a string of concepts that helped define Fulton Market, the West Loop, River North and now the North Shore. Along the way, his group has been credited with 12 James Beard Awards and a reputation for doing things right, not just first.

Donnie grew up in Chicago raised by his mother and her twin sister, two women who made handmade pasta every Friday and Sunday dinners that friends still talk about today. Before hospitality, he spent years at the Chicago Board of Trade, undercapitalized and inverting numbers, until bartending and hospitality took over and never let go.

In this episode, he talks about assembling the Blackbird team like a rock band, running out of money multiple times before opening night, and the moment his mother sat in a steel-studded, drywallless room and made peace with his dream. He also gets into his role as a hospitality advisor on The Bear, the avec expansion to Highwood, and why he still believes the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur is stay singularly focused on one great idea.

What we cover:

• Growing up Italian in a household run by his mom and her twin sister, and the Sunday dinners that shaped everything
• The Chicago Board of Trade detour: being undercapitalized, inverting numbers, and bartending his way to a new dream
• Meeting Rick DeArmit and assembling the Blackbird team like a rock band, each person an expert in their own instrument
• Running out of money more than four times and how his mom's blessing and seed money got them over the finish line
• Why Thomas Schlesser's minimalist design was ahead of its time and what it took to believe in it
• "Everyone is welcome": the phrase Rick coined that became the DNA of One Off Hospitality
• His role as hospitality advisor on The Bear and what he brought to set in seasons two and three
• avec coming to Highwood: the town hall meeting that changed the plan from Big Star to avec
• Post-COVID dining shifts, the suburbs having their moment, and why proximity to home is reshaping how people eat out
• Dyslexia, ADHD, and choosing to use them as abilities rather than disabilities
• The book he is writing and why he wants it to help other people navigate their own differences
• Why the best entrepreneurial advice he can give is to stay singularly focused, let it unfold naturally, and resist spreading too thin too fast

Find One Off Hospitality’s concepts and locations at oneoffhospitality.com and find Donnie on Instagram at @donniemadia, along with @avecchicago, @bigstarchicago, and @publicanchicago and more. Catch him in person at Publican Quality Meats in the West Loop during lunch time. 

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