Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Curatolo.
Alexandra, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Belli’s started from my personal health journey after college at 20, when I wanted to cut out many of the poor eating habits I had acquired. I was living in Pilsen at this time, and enjoyed volunteering for neighborhood organizations that worked on improving quality of life for Pilsen residents. I started volunteering for the Pilsen Community Market every Sunday and enjoyed waking up early to spend my Sundays there, and it also kept me out of trouble Saturday nights. I learned about local & organic food through the farmers at the market and it seemed to reawaken my passion for good food.
At this time, I also re-discovered my passion for running and started training for 5ks and half marathons using food as my fuel. I joined two community gardens nearby to further educate myself on growing food, and quickly became an urban gardener, growing many of the vegetables I would later use in juice and smoothies for my morning nutrition and while I was training for the next race.
While working at Trader Joe’s, I decided to go back to graduate school for Urban Planning & Policy, after listening to a speech by one of the professors who spoke of local food systems and the importance of food policy. I focused my studies on community development and local food, researching the health statistics in my own community. I also studied and became passionate about food policy in regards to food producers and immigrant rights. I decided after the first year of researching that I wanted to do more than research – I wanted to make a difference through expanding the farmers market, which had helped me on my own health journey.
I wrote up a business plan to open a health market and juice bar in Pilsen that would make local food affordable, work with local farmers and food producers, and employ local residents, Belli’s was initially designed to be an L3C, a low-profit corp that would work with the Pilsen Community Market and serve as an affordable hub for healthy food. It was changed in many ways over time as I could not achieve the L3C nor did I want to compromise my position as a board member of the farmers market, but I opened only months after creating the initial business plan in October 2013, and as of today, we are a full-service juice bar offering cold pressed juices, smoothies, salads, and other healthy food options for the community.
Has it been a smooth road?
LOL – No! I started with zero knowledge on operating a business. I struggled A LOT the first two years, trying to convince neighbors and friends that healthy IS cool, that vegan and vegetarian options ARE still tasty, and that investing in your health can make a difference. The words vegan and vegetarian weren’t trendy back in 2013 – now, we have the local panderia selling vegan conchas. It’s great, and through all my mistakes I have learned what not to do for future business operations, and it was a sacrifice that has only made me stronger in the end. The biggest struggles besides trying to create a demand for healthy options in Pilsen were with the city of Chicago. There’s a fine for everything, and I have emptied my pockets multiple times with fines and fees I never knew existed. I even had to take out a loan just to pay back the city for fees. It makes me question if I would open future locations in a city not so friendly to small business owners.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Belli’s sells organic & locally sourced cold-pressed juices, smoothies, smoothie bowls, salads, soups, vegan pizzas, veggie burgers, breakfast and lunch options, kombuchas, teas, coconut milk, and more! We also carry local honey, jams, nut butter, and many of the ingredients we use including vegetables and fruits for sale.
Almost everything we create has at least one local ingredient in it, if not everything. We don’t order frozen soups, we make them fresh from local ingredients. Same with almost everything we offer.
We also offer local produce shares for residents- an extremely affordable option for receiving local and organic vegetables and fruits every week.
My knowledge as an athlete that stays energized with our food can also be considered a specialization, as I supplement my nutrition with food and juice for long runs, boxing days at the gym, and even yoga.
Belli’s is most proud to be genuine. We truly care about our customers and neighbors and want to offer quality products to them. All of my coworkers who I hire at Belli’s know, understand and are behind our mission statement to offer local, organic, fresh, and affordable healthy food and juice options. We aren’t in it for the current trends, and won’t offer something like Kava or kombucha just became it’s trendy. We do the research, we have the knowledge, and we want to offer that to our customers because we truly care.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Our city needs to improve it’s assistance to small business owners. They shouldn’t fine and fee them for rules and regulations they didn’t even know existed. The city of Chicago was working under a Food Code up until the past year that was written in the 70s. A lot has changed and we need to continually keep that up to date. Beyond that, as a cold-pressed juice bar, we have a lot of trouble trying to offer healthy raw juices, that are often treated like raw meat. We can’t wholesale raw juice, which has killed half of my business as I have had many wholesalers reach out to us. It’s been a struggle in Chicago.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1307 W 18 ST
Chicago, IL 60608 - Website: WWW.BELLISCHICAGO.COM
- Phone: 312.307.7305
- Email: info@bellischicago.com
- Instagram: @BELLISCHICAGO
- Facebook: FACEBOOK.COM/BELLISPILSEN
- Other: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bellis-chicago
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