Conscious Choice: The Making of a Vegetarian Chef

March 2003

The Making of a Vegetarian Chef

by Jane Vaughn

Jo Kaucher, the pioneering vegetarian chef at Chicago Diner, gave up meat on a whim. "I became a vegetarian on kind of a dare with roommates," says Kaucher, who was 20 at the time. The challenge of it attracted her, as did the fact that on a tight budget, "brown rice and vegetables can go a long way."

Thirty years later, Kaucher is still vegetarian and game for a challenge, though she’s moved considerably beyond brown rice. Kaucher invented almost everything on the 20-year-old Chicago Diner’s all-vegetarian menu, which offers traditional diner fare — cheeseburgers and Reubens — with a twist. And the Chicago native, who calls herself a natural foods chef, amazingly has never taken a cooking class.

Her talent lies in "conversion" — finding great recipes and making them vegetarian and "au naturel." Tofu, tempeh (a variation on tofu) and seitan ("wheat" meat) substitute for meat while whole grains and organic sweeteners take the place of white flour and sugar.

Kaucher also concocts vegan (no meat, dairy, or eggs), sugar-free and wheat-free meals. The Diner boasts a flourishing catering business and its vegan bakery turns out everything from cheesecake to wedding cake and supplies Chicagoland’s Whole Foods Markets.

The Lakeview area restaurant, maintains a strong fan base, from strict vegetarians to meat-lovers. Kaucher rattles off a list of celebrity customers — from Madonna, Kevin Bacon, and Woody Harrelson to the Red Hot Chili Peppers — that makes the homey,‘50s-style restaurant sound more like a nightclub than a casual place to get veggie pot pie.

Chicago Diner distinguishes itself as a rare victory for vegetarian cuisine in the meat-devoted Midwest, a feat which earned the restaurant coverage in Vegetarian Times, the bible of veggie diners.

"Few restaurants have the nerve and commitment to go full vegetarian," says Phil Vetell, the Chicago Tribune’s restaurant critic.

That’s a distinction that elicits a note of pride from Kaucher. "We were before our time," she says, noting that in the early‘80s, when Chicago Diner opened, "vegetarianism wasn’t trendy the way it was in the early‘90s." But Kaucher still struggles with the challenge of creating a non-meat menu that resonates with middle-American diners.

Still Before its Time?

Despite its entrenched popularity in Chicago, a second Diner in Highland Park failed to attract a following. Kaucher devoted the past five and-a-half years to running the restaurant, which finally closed last July.

"[The closing] is still tender," she says. "If we had served either fish or chicken in Highland Park, we’d be busy. But Mickey and I don’t want to work in a kitchen with meat. It’s really different...and it’s really gross."

Mickey Hornick, co-owner of Chicago Diner and Kaucher’s partner of 21 years, persuaded Kaucher to start the original Diner with him. The two had met at a natural foods restaurant that used to occupy the same building as Chicago Diner. Convincing others of his idea proved more difficult. "The bank thought we were the weirdest people in the world," Hornick remembers. "They said,‘No chicken? No fish, at least?’ Everybody thought it was nuts."

Spurned by the bank, Hornick and Kaucher spent the next year drumming up investors. With $50,000 and plenty of elbow grease, the pair opened the Diner in 1983. Buying out their investors several years later, Hornick and Kaucher are sole owners of the business.

For years after the opening, Kaucher worked 100-hour weeks, driving over from her nearby coach house at a moment’s notice. When her workweek eased to 40 hours, Kaucher says, "I felt like I was working part-time." Never one to be idle, she took another job making salads at the former Gordon restaurant.

Until recently, the demands of the Highland Park location had swallowed the bulk of Kaucher’s time. She says the "wonderful" chef and a staff that "runs itself" at the Halsted restaurant allowed her to step back to a supervisory and creative role there.

Sitting at a sunny window table in her Halsted Street location, Kaucher, tall and slender, with bronzed skin and tousled, golden brown curls, looks like she belongs to the laid back, earthy culture associated with natural food devotees. But her quickly darting eyes and sporadic, fluttery hand gestures reveal the energy of a vigilant and tireless manager. "I like my kitchen to hustle," she says, adding that her kitchen staff consists of mostly nonvegetarians, since in her experience they’ve been the ones who work hardest.

She admits to relying on "plenty of common sense" to make up for a lack of business training. Employees know Kaucher only as a focused manager, and they say she runs a tight ship. "She has a strong and straightforward style," says David Baca, a waiter at Chicago Diner for almost five years.

Hornick, who handles the finances and is a more regular face on the restaurant floor, provides a perfect counter to Kaucher’s no-nonsense approach. "They’re night and day," Baca says.

Even in appearance, Hornick’s short, round, and jolly persona makes Kaucher seem more statuesque and reserved. "She makes all the food taste great, and I’m the big talker," jokes Hornick, though by all accounts that’s true.

A No-Nonsense Artist

Only close friends, who say she’s had a tough time getting over the Highland Park closing, get to see the sensitive side of Kaucher, who thrives on the creative process, recently adding pottery classes to her schedule. Her favorite creative exercise takes place in her own kitchen. Kaucher, who has no children, challenges herself by making a meal from whatever the finds in the fridge. "Usually based on what oil I end up using, that’s how the dish turns out. If it’s sesame oil, it’ll be an Asian dish."

Kaucher’s career has been shaped by equal parts practical work ethic and creative flair. She found her primary training ground at the Bread Shop Kitchen, a natural foods store and restaurant that has since closed. In the beginning, she rose at 4:00 am to make bread by hand, a job that earned her $10 a day. When a main entrée chef quit and Kaucher was asked to fill the position, she panicked. "I thought,‘I can’t make lasagna; I can’t make soup!’" she recalls. "But, I could follow a recipe."

She took the job and taught herself by reading instructions and experimenting on her own. That habit of experimentation carried over into Chicago Diner’s early days, when she fine-tuned the menu through trial and error. It was a method that always made Hornick, the businessman, nervous. "He would say,‘You can’t experiment on the customers,‘" Kaucher recalls with mock horror. "And I said,‘Well, that’s what I’m going to do.’"

Kaucher now passes those honed skills on to other chefs. She recently taught a seminar on vegetarian cooking to chefs at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. She says that sharing her secrets of veggie conversion with others is the best part of her success.

And she admits that the work of bringing vegetarian cuisine to the masses is far from done — the Highland Park closing made that even clearer. But while Hornick is eager to open another restaurant soon, Kaucher seems reluctant.

She says it’s been hard to recover from the project she poured "heart and soul" into. Still, she won’t rule anything out. She puts things in perspective by looking at the long-shot success of the original Diner. The Highland Park closing simply means, "We’re still before our time, even now."

Jane Vaughn is a Chicago freelance writer and has been a vegetarian for 12 years.

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