The Long Road to The Beard and The Boss

Three months into the pandemic, Phil Beattie was summoned back to the kitchen at Four Winds Casino.

On a typical day, he could make the drive in his sleep, but this time his heart pounded out of his chest and hands gripped the steering wheel as he fought to catch each breath. The best three months of his life were coming to a sudden end.

“I started making the drive and had a panic attack. I had been at home for three months with my son, my wife was working from home. My garden game was on point, and I was playing around with preservation. I even created a wormery. When I got home that day I told Brigid, ‘I can’t. I just can’t do it.’”

For Phil and Brigid Beattie, owners of The Beard and The Boss, launching their business has been a long road.

Phil entered the food industry as a young teenager working at a fast food chain, and after dropping out of Purdue, moved to South Bend to pursue a career in the kitchen. He spent his early career as a chef at The Summit Club, Lasalle Grille, The Mark Dine & Tap, and Fiddler’s Hearth before leaving the salaried chef world to work as a meat cutter at Jaworski’s Market.

“At The Summit Club I learned how to start making real food,” he remembers.

“I showed up dressed in my culinary outfit—my checks and my white starched jacket—not really knowing the reality of what the food scene was, versus what culinary school teaches you. The picturesque french-style restaurant: that’s fake, that’s not real. At least not here.”

Eventually Phil began looking for an opportunity to leave The Summit Club. One night he ran into Tom Sheridan, chef of Lasalle Grill, and struck up a conversation with him. “He told me, ‘If you beat me at a game of pool, you get the job.’ I ended up beating him, and when I went in the next day to apply, he didn’t remember. Luckily Andrew Galloway was there and remembered.”

When Phil and Brigid met, they immediately connected over a shared love of food. “We are both huge food nerds,” Brigid shared, “That was one of the things that drew us together.” But the demanding schedule was never ideal. “He always had a chef’s schedule: nights, weekends, holidays, eighteen-hour days.”

After over a decade of working his way up the ranks in various kitchens, Phil was exhausted and fed up with pouring creative energy into businesses in which he had no ownership. So, he left his career as a chef for a job as a meat cutter at Jaworski’s Market.

It was there that the first iteration of The Beard and The Boss was born.

“We’ve talked from the beginning about building a food business together,” Brigid shared. “We never really knew what it was going to morph into.”

This first iteration started as a side project crafting sausages using locally sourced ingredients and selling them at events and festivals around South Bend. While The Beard and The Boss was a creative outlet for the couple, the business was not turning a profit.

At the time, Brigid was working an unfulfilling corporate job and looking for an escape route. Both she and Phil were craving a career that would offer freedom to pursue their passions and somehow provide a stable income.

“When we found out we were having a baby, I decided to strive for something else,” Brigid shared. “I busted my ass studying for my real estate license, cramming the course and exams into three months while in my last trimester of pregnancy. I passed the first time and got my license, all while still working full time.”

When they welcomed their son, financially something had to give. “I decided to take one for the team and find a corporate job,” Phil said. He left Jaworski’s Market for a salaried chef position at Four Winds Casino, working long hours at a job offering little freedom or creativity. With a new baby at home, this was the perfect recipe for burnout.

For both Phil and Brigid the burnout came, and so did the pandemic.

When the restaurant industry came to a screeching halt, a three-month furlough was the break Phil needed to envision a life where he could be present with family and find inspiration in the craft of cooking and experimenting with food again.

Together they immediately began working to revive The Beard and The Boss, pivoting the concept to create meal kits delivered to residents of South Bend. During the first months of this new business model, Phil continued his job at the casino in the evenings, finishing his shift around ten o’clock, then working on meal kits for The Beard and The Boss into the early morning hours.

“I never had a real sleep schedule. Weekends I was up with the family, but on weekdays I worked until three or four in the morning. After the shininess of the business success wore off, the reality of always being sleep deprived and having a small child set in.”

Eventually Phil left his corporate job to focus all his efforts on the business, but Brigid continued juggling her full time job, pursuing a career in real estate, being a full-time mom, and handling a major role in The Beard and The Boss.

“My role is more than just peripheral. I am the behind-the-scenes of the business. The not-so-glamorous side of things: bookkeeper, HR department, payroll person, photographer, collaborator on recipes and menu development. I handle all of our marketing, social media, and writing.”

As the community began eating out in restaurants again, the meal kits began slowly dropping in sales. “With our meal kit delivery business stable but slowing, I eventually took the plunge into full time real estate,” Brigid said.

In an effort to bring more consistent business and provide Phil with his own kitchen, the couple began visioning for a brick-and-mortar restaurant. The opportunity to open inside Dainty Maid Food Hall presented itself, and they jumped at the idea.

The Beard and The Boss opened in the summer of 2022.

For Phil and Brigid, opening and operating their own businesses instead of clocking in for someone else has required endless time and energy, and the risks of failure loom larger. However, on the other side is the opportunity to build the life they want.

“There’s always more work to do,” Phil shared. “It takes fighting everyday to not be here from sun up to midnight. It takes everything in me. It’s not giving up—it’s healthy to not do that, because the other drive that I have is I want to see my family. I miss my kids. If it wasn’t for them I’d be here a hundred hours a week. This is where you’d find me.”

“We’re both such self-starters and super driven,” Brigid shared. “Some may call us workaholics, but it’s different when it’s your own business. We’re trying to grow our passions and grow our businesses. It’s all-pervasive.”

Work-life balance as a chef, business owner, spouse, and parent is ever-elusive. This isn’t the first iteration of The Beard and The Boss and may not be the last, but for Phil and Brigid, it’s an important mile marker in the quest for the life they want to build.

“I’m home for dinner now,” Phil shared, “That was something I never could do before.”

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Visit The Beard and The Boss inside Dainty Maid Food Hall at 231 S Michigan St, South Bend, IN 46601.

Photography by Jacob Titus