Fast Casual Nation Vignette - EP46: Semites Puebla

The menu of Cemitas Puebla is just as rich and flavorful — and perhaps, a little crazy — as its story. "I had no money, I had no experience. Everything that I did, you should do the opposite to own and start a successful restaurant," owner Tony Anteliz says in this Fast Casual Nation vignette as he recalled when his doors opened in 2002. "The only thing I had going for me was that I thought 'I had an idea that no one else is doing, and it's gonna be great, and within a a year, we're going to be busy, and everything is going to be fine.'" So like we said, and as Anteliz admitted that any experienced restaurateur would believe, the restaurant's beginnings were a little crazy. Still, this big risk came with an even bigger reward. What began as what Anteliz calls a greasy spoon or hole-in-the-wall on a shoestring budget, a taqueria or the "equivalent to an American hotdog stand," became a bustling Chicago hot spot.