Local Hand Directory
Paul Sapyta
Baker.
Caterer.
Southside Chicago
Paul Sapyta
Southside Chicago
When I was three or four years old, my sisters—who are about 12 or 13 years older than me—used to babysit me while they worked at a Chinese restaurant on the South Side of Chicago. I actually learned how to count in the back of that restaurant, putting almond cookies into little bags. Every time I got the count right, they’d give me a piece of sesame candy as a reward.
My older sister Kathy would also take me to the Taste of Chicago when we were growing up. She was a broke college student back then, so the first stop was always the Hare Krishna tent because they offered food by free will donation. That’s where I first got exposed to vegan food—it was beautiful.
And because she was on a tight budget, she wouldn’t let us spend our food tickets on something basic like pizza. She’d say, “You can get pizza any day. There’s turtle and beer soup over there—let’s try that instead.”
bigger than just me
There are different levels of creativity, and right now, I'm still trying to find my place within my own company. For the past 8–9 years, I’ve been working on it part-time, and we’ve finally reached a point where I can afford to be full-time. Now, my focus is figuring out how I fit into the company in a full-time role—without disrupting the processes that have already been developed, some by me, some by others, and all of them working well. That’s really my main creative challenge now: learning how to fully integrate into the company I built, which has grown to be so much bigger than just me.
