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(light upbeat music) (soft upbeat music) (soft upbeat music fades) - I am your host Matt George.

Joining me tonight, a good friend of mine, Hugh Higgins.

Hugh is the owner of the Hearth Restaurant in the Heights.

Welcome Hugh.

- Thank you, Matt.

A pleasure.

- Well, let's start off with you.

I know you didn't grow up in the restaurant business, is that correct?

- No, I did not.

No, I did not.

- But you have many talents.

You play, you're a musician, you like the arts.

- Yes.

So talk to me about growing up and where you grew up and how you got to where you're at now.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you for that.

Appreciate it, 'cause I'm a sum of many moving parts.

I'm originally born in Kentucky, both sides of my family, parents are from Kentucky and I've always considered that my home.

Even though we moved here when I was a very young man, we would visit Kentucky every Christmas, every Easter, would spend maybe a month in the summer.

And I watched that Kentucky Derby the first weekend of May every year.

And when that reveille blows and they play "My Old Kentucky Home," a tear comes down my eye every time 'cause I still have some family there.

And so I did a lot of growing up in Kentucky, and part of that was that Andy of Mayberry kind of feeling that that community provided to me, the same barber that cut my father's hair for the first time cut my hair for the first time, and the local grocery store where everybody knew everybody, and the guys playing checkers on the sidewalk.

You know, I get my first .22 when I'm 12 years old and I'm doing a little hunting and my grandmother, God bless her soul, says, "You can shoot anything you want, but you have to clean it.

I'll cook it, but you have to clean it."

So I was, you know, a budding young fisherman and, you know plink of squirrel here and there, get a rabbit here and there.

And so country food was something very simple, with homemade lard biscuits in the morning.

It's like, this is delicious food.

- It sounds good now.

- I love it.

I love that.

So I grew up in kind of a country setting, but then lived in Peoria.

So I was back and forth between it.

And my father was an educator, a teacher, retired from Peoria Central, and education was foremost on his mind.

So balancing that, I played some sports in high school, but I needed a little walking around money too.

So after I cut lawns and things like that, a very, very good friend had a mother who worked at a Chinese restaurant here in downtown Peoria, the Bamboo Inn, just down here at the foot of Main Street.

And they got in a bind and so I, along with my friends, were cutting and chopping vegetables, not really cooking, but I'm behind the scenes, I'm seeing the action, and it's kind of exciting, you know, the tickets coming and going and people yelling, "We need this, we need that," and, "Run downstairs, I need more bean sprouts."

You know, so we did a little bit of that and I found it exciting.

And a little bit later, another friend's mother who ran a concession stand at a bowling store, a bowling alley, Town & Country Bowl, she took sick and they need somebody to run the service there and I stepped in.

So now I'm doing over easy eggs and scrambled eggs and breakfast sandwiches, and, you know, I'm cooking breakfasts and lunches at a bowling alley.

And again, I kind of thrived on the energy of that.

There is an intensity to doing that work and get it done and get it done fast and move on to the next.

I kind of liked it, but that's a product all of my mother.

You know, my mother taught us all to cook.

I'm one of three sons and she made sure all three of her sons knew how to cook, how to do laundry, how to iron a shirt, put a good crease on the sleeve, how to look right.

And she grew up in an era where men didn't do those things, the wives did all of those things, and she wasn't gonna raise three boys that way.

She was gonna make sure we all knew how to took care of ourselves.

So that was a thanks to mom as well.

- She raised you right.

- She was a great woman, a good woman, became a businesswoman later in her life, ran a very successful antique shop and, you know, a brick and mortar building.

And so she had a great business sense and all those things rubbed off.

- Interesting.

So where did the music come in?

Because you've played guitar and other things for many years, right?

- Yes, yeah.

As a young man, I always, you know, loved music.

It was just a part of our background, whether it was listening to the Beach Boys, you know, in the summertime, or the things that really touched me, I think, were the local artists.

At a young age in high school, I heard of Dan Fogelberg.

And in 1972, I saw a concert with him here in Peoria.

he played Robertson Memorial Field House, and I was thoroughly impressed with this young singer-songwriter that played guitar and played a beautiful grand piano and had these wonderful words that were very touching.

They were just touch tones to my soul.

I could hear his words so much, I felt them.

And I felt like he was more of a poet than a musician.

He was great at both.

And I loved his music very much.

And I was a budding young guitarist at the time so I emulated his work and the work of David Crosby and James Taylor.

So I kind of became engulfed in the singer-songwriter era.

And I loved that music and it was things I was capable of doing, and then found like people in my age group that could also do that.

And we started working on putting different groups and bands together.

- Well, let's talk about now, Hearth, because it's one of my favorite restaurants and you know that, and when I go there, you walk in and everything that you just told all the viewers is felt when you walk in.

And take the food, we'll get to the food in a minute, but when you get in and right to the left, there's a table and there's antiques in it.

I did not know your mom had an antique shop.

So that explains that because you care about Peoria and you care about history, you're a historian.

And then what's interesting is when you look at all of the art, you love art.

So you walk in and that artist is local.

Oh, wait a minute, so is that one and that one.

I got that down at the art fair, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And I think that's what's really neat about you going all in, not just on a restaurant, but community.

And that's what it's about.

- True.

It's true.

Thank you.

Well, thanks for noticing.

You know, it is, it's always been a part of me to work local as I can.

And that does come through with the food.

I try to employ local food sources whenever possible.

But we're in the Midwest and we have winter, so you can't get local food year round but many months out of the year where you can.

But we also have this thriving artistic community, whether it's the theater community or the artists and the First Friday programs that happen every month, all year round where you can tour different shops and see all this wonderful work there's being produced here by local artists.

I love it.

- So I use photography from several different artists.

There's hand-blown glass from Hiram Toraason and there's the ceramic piece, my son, my chef, he actually went to college as an art major and came out being a great cook so some of his work is on display there as well.

Employing the local artists is very important and it provides a local identity.

And in the display case where I've saved some of the gems from my parents' collection, my dad loved to collect local smalls, they're called, small bits of souvenirs.

- I love smalls.

- There were tokens, and, you know, tchotchkes, or trinkets and trash, we call them these days.

But, you know, he would find a little eraser that's, you know, about one-inch long and it's from Peoria Brick & Tile, well, it was just a little souvenir they left for a customer.

But things like a piece of a handlebar, the shield, the iconic shield of a Peoria King bicycle, Peoria King Bicycles, built in the Trefzger's Factory just down the street from my restaurant.

- Isn't that crazy?

- So there was just like, I got a Hiram Walker section and a Pabst section.

There's just different areas of our community that were big and important and they left little footprints behind and so we display those 'cause we love saving history.

- Yeah, and I agree with you.

And if you think about it, we have so many local artists that are just unbelievable- - Talent.

- Not only talented, some of them are world-renowned.

Bob Doucette, he comes into the restaurant.

I mean, he's top-notch.

And when you look at all of these different artists, it's just awesome.

You know, I was just thinking, you were talking about Dan Fogelberg.

I was lucky enough in my fundraising days to put on and be part of the first Dan Fogelberg concert.

So I was on stage with his brother, Dan Fogelberg's brother, and you and I think 25 others over the years have helped participate in these concerts to raise money for the memorial fund, the Dan Fogelberg fund and the park on on the river and so many other things, and the arts.

But if you think about the musicians too, we were just talking about artists, but the musicians around here, (laughs) they're unbelievable!

And so it sounded like Fogelberg when the music was playing.

- We had the talent to do it.

- Isn't that crazy?

And then the other thing, and then we'll get to Hearth, but that's the main reason we're talking, is when we named the street, the city, so Mayor Ardis, I got to get up there and help put the sign up and then we had a painting commissioned of Fogelberg and his spouse.

She said, "You know what, Matt, go ahead and give it back to the city somehow."

So we ended up donating it to the Peoria Civic Center.

- And there it hangs today- - And there it hangs.

- in the theater.

- Isn't that cool?

- Yeah, it touches my heart.

- Yeah, it's always been a cool thing in my head that, you know, I don't talk about much, but it's just kind of a fun thing.

All right, Hearth, so Hearth is many things.

To me, it's comfort food.

To me, it's quality.

And here's the thing with the restaurant for me, I love cleanliness, I'm a neat freak.

Your place is one of the cleanest I've ever seen.

And that's important to people.

- Oh, gosh, yeah.

- And then you get to the menu.

And when I first met you, you weren't in the restaurant business, you were in the liquor business.

How long were you doing that?

- 32 years, so when I told you about that young boy who was working at the Chinese restaurant and cutting fruits and vegetables and then became a short-order cook, then I didn't cook for a while, but there was a a time that I went back to cooking and I made a living as a cook for several years.

I went to Boston, my brother was in Boston doing postgraduate work at the School of Music.

We ended up both working at the same Italian restaurant and had a very talented chef that unfortunately was working himself down the ladder.

Alcohol was his curse, but he took a shining to us both and we'd have cooking lessons and bring ingredients and we'd make something that wasn't on the menu of this Italian restaurant.

We did it just for ourselves.

(Matt laughs) And I continued that even at, you know, 19, 20, 21 years old, I'm getting "Food & Wine" and "Bon Appetit" magazine delivered and I'm tearing out recipes and finding the ingredients and trying to make international dishes.

When we both moved back to Peoria, he went to to continue his cooking at a fine restaurant called Pasqualino's, which was out in Pioneer Park, fine dining, tableside chef.

I went to work at another place like that in Downtown Peoria, which was the Raintree Lounge.

It was part of the Continental Regency Hotel, and I was the tableside chef there.

(Matt laughs) And so here we're both making these fine tableside food and flaming dishes and having fun doing that and still working on perfecting as much as we could on our own for our own pleasure.

And I met someone that I wanted to marry and start a family with and restaurant business are kind of tough for that, so I fell back on my other skillset, which was wine, because the whole time I'm making all these foods I'm finding and looking for wines that go with the foods.

- [Matt] Oh, I did not know that.

- So I go to Boris' Wines, an international wine cellar up on Western Avenue, the finest store in Peoria at the time, and I'm saying, "I'm making veal osso buco and it says here I need a Piedmont red wine."

And so they would go find me one and I'm going, "Ah."

And it was good and I love it, so the wine clique went well for me.

So I continued to explore wine.

So then that led me to, "Well, maybe I could sell wine for a living."

And I knocked on a few doors and it took me about three months, but I got a job selling wine for a living.

So now they put me in every hotel, restaurant, and country club in the tri-county area and I'm selling wine and spirits, specifically hotels, restaurants, and country clubs.

So I kind of never lost my restaurant connection.

I was able to use my food knowledge and wine knowledge and put those things together.

- And the whole time you were collecting thoughts and memories of what then became and now is Hearth.

So your brother's name's Rudy, right?

- Yeah, my brother's Rudy, yeah.

- So was that your dream, to have a restaurant, both of you?

- It was at one time, when we were at our time in Boston, we always thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be great if we had our own place someday?"

And that was kind of in the back of our mind.

And then we both went to our different restaurants.

But he had an education, he had a teaching degree that he was plusing up and working on.

And he ended up getting his masters, and then so he wanted to pursue what he'd always worked for, which was music education, and that he did.

And he became the band director at Peoria Central High School and principal percussionist for the Peoria Symphony for 17 years.

- [Matt] How cool is that?

That's pretty neat.

- And got to play with The Moody Blues.

- That's cool.

- Did it all.

So I stayed on the wine and spirits side, but still, we always kept our touch with food.

And when it came to the point that my kids were old enough and raised that I could maybe go out on a limb and try this change of career path, I approached him and he just wasn't able or willing to give up.

He had a daughter that was in high school at the time and he says, "Look, I will work with you and for you."

He just retired from teaching and he says, "I'll work with you and for you but I can't be your partner, but I'll be there with you."

And that's what he did.

And he was my more my documentarian and he built the recipe books and he just did a great job.

And he cooked for me for four and a half years until we kind of got on our feet.

- [Matt] Isn't that a great story?

- It was for us.

- How did you come up with the name Hearth?

- A wonderful gal who helped me through the Fogelberg project, Deborah, Deborah Jonick, God bless her soul.

She's not with us now, but Deb helped me with my design and the logo.

And we were kicking around things and I was looking for something that was cozy and warm and comforting because I didn't want a restaurant that looked like a restaurant and I wanted it to be more like a home.

And I'm lucky I found the space that I did that lent itself towards that.

But the word Hearth does conjure that up.

The hearth is that warm cozy place in front of the fireplace.

- That's right.

- Your feet get wet, you take your shoes off, you put them on the hearth and you dry out your shoes or, you know, you fell in the snow and your butt got got wet and you turn around and you warm your bones on the fire.

So that's the hearth.

But I looked at it and I just thought, I said, "No, it says so much more."

So the first five letters say heart, which is what we try to put into everything that we do.

- Oh, sweet.

- And you take off the first letter, it says Earth.

- Earth, okay.

- Which we try to honor by using local produce whenever possible.

In the middle is art.

Try to honor the local artists, you know, the Hiram Toraasons, the Doug and Eileen Leunigs, the, you know, David Vernons of the world that are giving us this beautiful art here in this community.

And in a last little bit of vanity, it ends with both Hs, and so I capitalize them 'cause they're my initials.

(laughs) So a lot went into it.

- My favorite thing about going into your restaurant, besides the food, is your staff there.

I mean, there's a culture there that you've established that I'm guessing that some restaurants are jealous because you have a core.

And those core, I see some of the same people I've seen year after year.

And that's hard to do in this day and age, but it's impressive because I walk in, they know my name.

I walk in, sometimes I don't even have to order.

I brought someone in there a few weeks ago and she said, "Matt, would you like your salad and your soup?"

"Yeah, that's what I'd like."

And I don't even have to order.

It's just impressive.

And so your team is top notch.

- They are.

- I love it.

- They are, they are.

And I'm so blessed.

Many have been with us for several years.

And we try to create an environment that's conducive to helping each other.

We learned something years ago through COVID, and, you know, the usual restaurant formula is, you know, this is your section, this your piece of territory and this is your section and your piece.

So you've got 18 customers tonight.

You've got 22 customers tonight.

If we get an extra one that comes in, you'll get it 'cause you're down forward to this person.

So you tried to balance it out so people earn equally.

But then COVID came and it was carry-out only and people were wonderful and they tipped well.

They tipped very well just to help my people be there and to help the restaurant to continue to exist and those people.

So the the tips were very, very generous.

And so we decided, "Well, we're just gonna split.

We're just gonna split it even between, it doesn't matter how many people you did or you did."

And then when things opened up a little bit and we could serve outside only, we continued with the shared philosophy.

And then when we got to open up all the way, we had an employee meeting and I said, "So we're we're back to square one, we're back to the old days.

Do you want to do it the old days way or do you want to continue with the new way where we all help each other and we're all in it, you know, three musketeers, all for one, one for all?"

And of I'll say just nine out of the halves, there were nine votes, eight votes wanted to stay with what we're doing now.

And we did it all anonymous.

And I said, "Here's a piece of paper and you just write a Y or an N." - Wow, that's impressive.

- "And you put that in and I'm gonna take this to heart."

I also added, I said, "But you all realize this is not a democracy.

I'm not gonna do what you say, but I just want to know how you feel because I think what we have is really working.

I wanna know how you feel."

And it was pretty decided, everybody was fine with sharing.

We do that still to this day.

- Isn't that cool?

I didn't know that.

That's great.

- You know, if somebody gives you a $100 tip, well, that's great for everybody else too because we all share.

- Yeah, and it makes everybody also care about everybody else.

- Yeah, they walk by your table and they go, "Oh, would you like some more coffee?"

And they take care of it, or just to remove something from the table to clean it up, to keep things going.

You know, there's eight dishes coming out for one table and they say, "Do you need help getting that out?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

Boom, you know, so now you have two or three people all swooping and serving one table at once.

It's a community that we've created.

- I've noticed that.

So when you're back there expoing in the kitchen and I ordered something, well, they brought me my soup, the next person brought me my salad or my sandwich or whatever it may be, I get it.

So you're famous for fresh food, and when you look at your kitchen and I guess all the recipes, what's your favorite?

I've never asked you that.

- Ooh!

It, it's almost a mood thing.

Or sometimes I'll rely on on the absence of what I haven't had.

So I'll look around and say, "Oh, I haven't had the duck breast in a long time.

Let's try that."

And quite often, I will have the bartender or the server put the order in as if it's a table or a customer.

I say, "Don't tell them it's for the boss.

You know, just make it like it's just a single person's ordering food.

I wanna see how it comes out."

I don't want them to make it for the boss, I wanna see what everybody else is going to get.

You know, so I bounce around on a lot of things just to make sure I'm touching all of those things and staying familiar with them.

I see them, I watch the food go out the window, but there's certain things that I like to order that are more difficult to cook at home.

So, you know, duck breast is a perfect example.

It takes 25 minutes for us to do a duck breast properly with the resting time involved and the cutting and the fanning and the sauce that goes on there.

So our San Francisco cioppino, so many layers of levels of flavors that go into that.

You know, it's just one of those things.

Nice to have a bigger kitchen to pull off some dishes, so I go for the things that are a little harder to do, but then sometimes you just feel like a good steak.

- Yeah, or your soups.

- Oh, the soups.

- I mean, the soups are my, I'm a soup guy- - Oh, the soups are good.

- so it's hard for me not to want the soup of the day and the tomato because- - Two soups?

- I can do it.

- Yeah.

- So you have a really cool bar.

Now, there's some real nice looking bars around, but then there's the selection piece.

And the selection piece is where you thrive.

That is what's unique about your bar, I think.

- Thanks, yeah.

Yeah, it is.

And again, that's part of, I think, my wholesale and supplier- - Yeah, I agree.

- supply of, you know, selling spirits for so long and being able to visit wonderful places.

And again, through my previous career, I called on so many wonderful, great restaurants.

And then I also took a career about eight years, 14 years I was in wholesale, and then I did another eight years as a supplier.

So now I got to travel to Ireland, Scotland and Sweden and all over the United States and be entertained in some of the finest restaurants in the world.

- Well, I want to tell you, you've done a great job.

Menu items are at a fair price and the quality is off the chart.

So Hugh Higgins, Hearth Restaurant, thank you for everything you do, a great restaurant.

- Yeah, it was great.

- I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

(light upbeat music) (light upbeat music continues) (light upbeat music continues) (moves to soft music) - Thank you for tuning in to "Business Forward," brought to you by PNC.

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