Kathy Vega Hardy, the chef behind A Taste of the Philippines, decided to shutter her food stall at Chicago French Market last year. The commute amid the construction on the Kennedy was taking its toll on her, and it was harder to be with her family.
But, like many times over the 12 years she’s run her small business, when one era ended, another began.
She moved into the farmers market in Jefferson Park, where she lives with her husband and two kids. The new stall offered a limited menu, including cold brew and baked ube doughnuts. After first opening last summer, she sold out in 40 minutes.
The buzz she built and connections she made at the farmers market laid the groundwork for her new cozy and homey 28-seat restaurant at 5914 W. Lawrence Ave., which just opened.
“I couldn’t be happier. [The restaurant is] five minutes away versus an hour and a half drive to downtown. And I get to be with my kids,” she said. “I love the balance of working, seeing them, hanging out with them, teaching them, reading to them. But also I want them to know I’ve been self-sufficient money wise.”
She shares some of the same values with the husband-and-wife team of Robert and Kissel Fagaragan, who are welcoming customers to Umaga Bakehouse, their large and sunny bakery in Mayfair. (Umaga means morning in Tagalog.)
The bakery, specializing in Filipino rolls called pandesal and ensaymadas (soft and airy brioche bread that come in a variety of flavors) is a stone’s throw away from Seafood City, a Filipino supermarket, and other Filipino food businesses such as Red Ribbon and Jollibee.
A Taste of the Philippines and Umaga Bakehouse are the latest in a wave of new Filipino restaurants to open in the city in recent years, joining longtime establishments like Ruby’s Fast Food in Albany Park and Uncle Mike’s Place in West Town.
While Hardy and Robert and Kissel Fagaragan, owners of Umaga Bakehouse, took different paths to their respective businesses, they share a common goal — being their own bosses.
Hardy, who was born in the Philippines and grew up downstate in Springfield, was a senior accountant in Denver before she was laid off.
Losing her job “was kind of a release, and I felt relieved,” she said. The thought of having to go through that again pushed her to start the food truck and fill a void for Filipino food. She didn’t know how to cook, so she enlisted her mom, a chef and a dietitian for a hotel, to teach her how to make the basics: Adobo, lumpia and pancit (stir-fried noodles that come with pork, chicken or shrimp).
Hardy still serves the classics on her menu but also offers dishes like Scotch eggs made with longanisa (Filipino sausage), baked ube doughnuts and other foods she enjoyed and on which she wanted to put a Filipino spin.
The Fagaragans, who met at her family’s bakery in California and moved to Chicago in 2018, knew they wanted a better work-life balance after feeling burned out from working for another bakery. When an investor, who declined to be named for this story, approached them to open Umaga, the couple thought about what would be best for their 4-year-old.
“At the end of the day, Kyle, our daughter, is the most important,” Kissel said. “When it came down to having this opportunity ... we would purposely separate business and our personal life, and create that happy medium compared to working for another company.”
“We worked for other companies, and we were working so hard, but at the end of the day that’s not ours,” Kissel said, in contrast to Umaga, which has 15 employees.
Their parents instilled a strong work ethic and commitment to supporting family, values that many Filipinos hold dear. Robert Fagaragan, 32, grew up working for his dad in their home-based bakery in the Philippines. He learned how to bake bread, which he sold around the neighborhood on his bike.
Kissel Fagaragan, 36, says she gets her work ethic from her mom.
“Now that we’re opening our own business, you start to realize the hard work that they put in,” Kissel said, getting a little emotional as she remembers what her parents did for her and her siblings. “It’s a full circle moment.”
Hardy’s parents also fostered a strong work ethic in her when she was growing up.
“If you look up the term ‘American Dream,’ that’s my dad,” Hardy said. Her father worked three jobs to save money and then moved the family from the Philippines to Springfield at her aunt’s encouragement to make more money.
Her mom instructed her to “work hard and work hard,” so that “when you’re an adult, and we’re not around, you’re self-sufficient.”
And now she’s passing on those lessons to her girls, ages 5 and 1 ½. The older daughter, Olivia, would stamp bags at the Chicago French Market.
“Having the restaurant, for me, I feel like it’s gonna be a good learning experience [for her kids],” she said. “And I hope I’m here for a very long time. I’d love for Olivia to be here cooking with me and and just, you know, hopefully take over A Taste of the Philippines.”
