Michael Fitzgerald says there’s no question his mother Sally is the key to the continuing success of Fitzee’s, the family’s barbecue joint that’s recently relocated to the corner of Cermak and Indiana. Mrs. Fitzgerald spends 12 to 14 hours a day at the restaurant, chopping up slabs of ribs, tossing oak chips on the fire, serving up platters of hot links, and slathering chicken wings with her patented fat-free barbecue sauce. If it’s slow, she can be found in the back kitchen baking sweet potato pie, caramel cake, and–if she has time–her own favorite, an extremely rich 7UP cake.
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So who gets the credit, Michael or his mother? Michael himself is torn. “I said to a friend of mine last week, ‘I’m the captain of the ship.’ She said, ‘No, you ain’t the captain.’ I said, ‘A captain never leaves the ship.’ She said, ‘But you’re just the cocaptain.’ Well, like the Titanic, a captain never leaves the ship even if it’s sinking. And I’ve never left. I’ve never left. Her saying that was an insult to me. But my mother is this business, so I guess I’m just living vicariously through my mother. I am the cocaptain.”
A typical workday for Mrs. Fitzgerald is spent cooking. For Michael, there is no typical workday. He could be alternately answering phones, picking up enormous shipments of rib meat at a warehouse, putting up holiday decorations, or driving his brightly colored Fitzee’s delivery truck around the South Loop. But promoting the restaurant is his singular goal.
In September the original Fitzee’s Hickory House closed, “for remodeling,” according to a sign in the window. “No one in our family wants to go back to that community right now,” Michael says, “because there’s too much drama still going on over there. It’s gonna take a while before that is changed. It’s gonna be a few years before we reopen. But in the meantime, my mother still owns the property, and our name is still featured on the building. Thousands of cars pass through there weekly, and as they stop they see Fitzee’s. Whether we’re there or not, I think it’s important to keep our name alive.”
“I think work is a great ethic, but she needs to rest. She’s called me a racehorse before. She is also a racehorse. But she’s tired. And I was raised to speak up and be outgoing. Now I am. She figures, I created this monster and now I need to lock him up. Well, mom, I’m out! And I won’t be contained!”
