Cafe Moxo owner Mark Forinash speaks with Elizabeth Wake about transition to the central west end of town

Elizabeth Wake:
This is Community Voices on NPR Illinois. I'm Elizabeth Wake. Today I'm joined by Mark Forinash, owner of Cafe Moxo in Springfield. Hey Mark.
Mark Forinash:
Good morning. How are you, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth Wake:
I am great. So, I want to hear about the origins of Cafe Moxo. Where'd it come from? How'd you get the name?
Mark Forinash:
If I can remember that far back, it seems like forever, but it also seems like yesterday. So I'm originally from St. Louis area, and my wife and I decided to move here. She was moving back to her hometown. And all I really knew about Springfield from visiting her family, I knew about 18 people here, was Lincoln. And we're so much more than Lincoln. We are wildly more than Lincoln, but we are the hometown. We are the premier Lincoln spot. And so that's what I associated Springfield with. So, when I was trying to come up with a name for this restaurant, the only thing that popped into my head all the time was Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. So we bought the website Cafe Lincoln.
Elizabeth Wake:
I was just going to ask, did you think about naming it Cafe Lincoln?
Mark Forinash:
I did. I had all the paperwork filled out with a Secretary of State. The night before I was going to file. All the paperwork was filled out. We had all the stuff. Whatever social media was around at that point, I think it was just Facebook. May have been MySpace at this point. Who knows? I know. I never had a MySpace. But So we had everything done and then went to bed that night and got up in the morning and Moxo popped into our head. And it was really the mix of two of our dogs, Moxon and Rambo. And then we were able to play up on the M being the first initial of my name of Mark and then the OXO with, you know, kind of that good home feeling.
Elizabeth Wake:
Adorable.
Mark Forinash:
And so it just worked. So we scrapped all the Cafe Lincoln stuff and submitted everything that day with Cafe Moxo.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah, I mean, it's easy to spell. It's easy to read. That's great branding. So now in opening a restaurant, do you have a culinary background?
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, I do. I do not have a degree, but kind of a weekend warrior. Took so many classes, went and trained up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Did all the things other than graduating with a culinary degree. I call it a passion. You do see a lot of folks that go through the culinary program and they either go into management or they go into accounting or they go into back of the kitchen or front of the house. And so I kind of wanted a mix of everything. I didn't really want to be, not stifled, but I didn't really want to be put in a box. I think one of the things in the restaurant industry is you can have some really, really, really good recipes. But if that can't translate to the front of the house, It's not a good equation. Same thing. If you're really good in the front of the house, but you have no idea how to turn a stove on or no idea how much a tablespoon of sugar weighs or blah, blah, blah, it's not going to translate to the back of the house. I wanted to be a little bit more encompassing. There's a lot of folks that are. But I didn't want to get stifled or stuck into one position, whether it was front of the house or back of the house.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah, well-being owner, you get to wear all the hats.
Mark Forinash:
You do, and you get to be the lead restroom cleaner. And when things break, you get to figure out how to fix them without having to call somebody in at all times. at least to keep your costs down a little bit. So you learn A lot. Yeah, it's a lot of hats.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah, absolutely. Now, you started downtown. You then moved out to the West Side. And I know that you might be a little tired of telling this story, but I think it's an important part of Moxo's journey. So the reason, one of the reasons why you moved out to the West Side was in June of 2024, there was a fire on Adams Street where your downtown location was located. Can you tell me about that day?
Mark Forinash:
Oh my gosh. I mean, I remember A, it was hot. It was Juneteenth and farmer's market was going on out front. One of our favorite times of the year was farmer's market, as you well know. So from May to October, every Wednesday and Saturday. So it happened to be on a Wednesday. And so going back to that day, there was a neighbor upstairs on the third floor that had reported smelling some smoke or something like that, smelling something kind of burning. And so the fire department came in and checked it all out. And I said, no, we're not burning toast. You know what I mean? There's nothing here. And then lo and behold, a couple hours later, it really kind of blew up into the situation that it unfolded in. And I remember at that point, it was like 1151 and I was back in my office doing some paperwork, getting ready for lunch service, getting ready to come up front. And the general manager, Brandon, comes running back. He's like, the fire department's here. There's a fire, everybody out. And so I just immediately get up off my desk. We go out there. There's some customers in the restaurant at that point, sitting down and eating. So we hurry them up and we're like, look, you guys gotta go. We have a video of our security footage of a customer actually picking up their plates and everything and taking them over to the bus box and trying to get a refill of ice tea. And we're like, look, you just got to leave it. It's time to go. At that point, the fire department's running all the way through the restaurant. They have their axes out. And I mean, there's just, there's got to be 18 of them. And it was kind of a, it really got hectic there. By about 1153, or so, we were across the street at the corner of 4th and Adams, the white building on the southwest most side and turn around and look and just smoke is billowing out of our neighbors, which was 413 and 415 East Adams. Fire trucks are coming in and it's really a chaotic scene at that point. And it went on for several hours.
Elizabeth Wake:
It did. I remember watching it.
Mark Forinash:
I mean, you're talking There were over 4 trucks there dumping water and gallon after gallon after gallon. I don't even know how there was any water left in Lake Springfield, but It all happened to be in our restaurant, I think, as you certainly have first-hand experience of as well.
Elizabeth Wake:
My car was parked in that parking garage on Adams.
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, in Chatterton or whatever.
Elizabeth Wake:
But yeah, that was a little scary. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to get that car back because I didn't know if that building was going to collapse or be set for demolition or if it was safe enough to go get them out.
Mark Forinash:
It was just it was a brutal scene. by the end of it, we're talking 4, 4 1/2 hours of just gallon after gallon after gallon. And ultimately that's what led to the demise of Cafe Moxo at 411 East Adams was, you know, the fire hit our roof for less than 15 seconds. They were able to kind of extinguish that really, really, really quickly. But that sheer amount of water that was poured in from all directions ultimately had to flow somewhere and it went into The businesses are to the furthest E. It went into the smoke and then it went into our business. It kind of stopped at 409 East Adams, which was our second location. We were tied together there. And that had a lot of water damage, but not the amount that 411 East Adams had, which was kind of the heart of it.
Elizabeth Wake:
So did it take out all your equipment?
Mark Forinash:
Everything. So We lost 100% of everything. I'm going to say 99.999% because I was able to get a couple computers out. The next day we were able to get a couple computers. We got a couple file cabinets. We got the pictures of our dogs, which we named the restaurant after, Moxon and Rambo. And then we got another picture of one of our dogs and our son and another dog. And so we're big dog lovers. So that's all that we were able to save. But But otherwise we lost everything, every piece of equipment, every piece of paper, original drawings, every first invoice that we had, all those kinds of things. I will say last on what we lost and didn't lose, I did pull down the first dollar that we made.
Elizabeth Wake:
Oh, that's sweet.
Mark Forinash:
So I did get that the next day. And it was a gentleman by the name of Mike Stratton. had signed the first dollar. And so I did save that and I have that with the first dollar that we made at our new location here on Chatham Road, Chatham and Isles. So we're happy to at least have that.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah. Now in the in between, you did something that to me was truly revolutionary and showed me how much you put people over profits. which I think in the business industry, that's something that I look for in a business. Tell me what you did with your employees in between when you had no location before you reopened on the West Side.
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, I mean, we were trying to figure out, we were trying to figure out, I think, a multitude of things. every employee that we had the same bills that I had. You have a house payment, you have a car payment, you have families, you have to figure out how to buy clothes and food and necessities. And so we kind of went back into crazy mode of holy cow, what are we going to do? We have to take care of our employees. And then it also entered in my head that we've always taken care of the community as much as we possibly could. So we reached out to a lot of community organizations. St. John's Bread Line, St. Martin de Porres, Central Illinois Food Bank, Compass for Kids. So we would go and we would serve food at St. John's Bread Line and you know we some of the folks that I think gave their time there were like, holy cow, we can't believe you guys got that much prep done in the amount of time that you do. And we're like, look, there's a difference in you still have a good time, but it is time to work at the same time. And so that's what we did. We just put our head down and we worked. For a few days we went around and picked up trash around downtown and just tried to make it a little bit better of a place because of the disaster in which it was in. One of I think the neatest things that we did is we started cooking for Compass for Kids. And we would cook meals for the children that didn't necessarily have meals to go home to that night or that needed a little bit of extra help and extra support. And so we would go out there and we would cook meals and then we would deliver it to churches and children in the evenings. A lot of it was, guys, we're here. Let's figure out how to help the community. let's put all of our heads together and let's work hard and try to make it still a great place to be, which I still think Springfield's a great place.
Elizabeth Wake:
I agree. I agree.
Mark Forinash:
So we really had a lot of opportunities, I think, to help out, even though we didn't necessarily have a home base, we were able to still, I think, partake in the community. And it's something that we try to continue even through today. I think it's later this month. We're, we're doing another meal for Compass for Kids. And it's just, we try to do anything that we can, I think, to help out the community that got us to where we are today. Been a crazy Rd.
Elizabeth Wake:
It has. And now you have a location on the west side.
Mark Forinash:
We do, yeah.
Elizabeth Wake:
So you're on Isles?
Mark Forinash:
We are, yeah, at the corner of Isles.
Elizabeth Wake:
And how is that going?
Mark Forinash:
I mean, it's great. You know, we're a year in. Yesterday was kind of our year anniversary of when we opened. Oh, happy anniversary. Thank you. So we're really thrilled. You know, and it's, I knew it was going to be difficult. Oftentimes when you see a location open up a second location. they're often compared to their first location. And I knew it was going to be tough. I probably didn't have an idea it was going to be as tough as what it was. So it was kind of a little bit of a gut punch. Our recipes are the same. Almost all of our people were the same when we first opened. But it was different. And so when you go into a new location, you don't have that site. I mean, I didn't even know how to turn on all the lights by the time we opened. so you kind of learn a new rhythm and you learn a new dance floor and it really is true. And then, lastly, I think you're compared to what you were and how you were. I've often said that I can make a chicken pot pie or a bowl of oatmeal or a cookie for you and you can eat it in downtown Cafe Moxo. You can eat it in West Side Cafe Moxo and you can eat it at home. And you're going to get a little bit different interpretation every single time because it's just the environment that you're in. And so that's something that we had to counteract a little bit. So that was tough. So it's a different feeling. And we've had a couple people review it and say, it's just not the same old Cafe Moxo. And while I respond probably a little bit more politically correct, in the back of my mind, I'm like, no doubt, man, it's not the same Cafe Mox. So we were forced to move. We were forced to change. And that's what we're trying to do is to adapt the best that we can. You know, we're just happy to be where we are. We're happy to be open again. And most importantly, we thank the community, I thank, for allowing us the opportunity to come back after, the 20s, or they're kind of the roaring 20s with COVID and everything. Godly, we're getting hit hard. So let's, I think, take a step back and really figure out what's important in this community and try to work towards a better community.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah. Well, Mark, thank you so much.
Mark Forinash:
Thank you. I ramble Springfield. I ramble.
Jeff Williams:
You've been listening to Community Voices. production of NPR Illinois 91.9. Elizabeth Wake has been interviewing Mark Forinash, the owner of Cafe Moxo. They discussed being business owners, being part of the Adams family, which are businesses located near and along Adams Street in downtown Springfield. After a devastating fire, Mark, Cafe Moxo had to make a decision, and we'll hear more from Elizabeth and Mark. Community Voices 91.9, NPR, Illinois.
Elizabeth Wake:
This is Community Voices. I'm Elizabeth Wait, and this is part two of our two-part interview with Mark Forinash of Cafe Moxo. In part one, we discussed the origins of the restaurant and the devastating fire downtown that led to a new location on the west side of Springfield on Isles and Chatham Road. Today, we are going to discuss potential plans to return downtown, favorite Cafe Moxo dishes, and the ups and downs of business ownership. Now I know a lot of people are interested in the answer to this question, but do you have plans to go back downtown at any point?
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, we said it very early on that downtown was the heartbeat. I've said it ever since we opened. one of the reasons why I fell in love with downtown was what I always called feet on the street. And I like looking out and seeing feet on the street. I like looking out and seeing people not necessarily. I'll give you a background story here real quick. So when we first opened, I used to walk out the front door and look to the east towards the old state capitol. Dang, why is everybody up there? Why is nobody coming down here on East Adams? why is everybody going in all these other businesses and what am I doing wrong? And I think one day it just clicked for me is pay attention to the people that come in, give them the dying support and thankfulness and appreciation for them coming in your door and they will go and tell other people and they will bring other people in our door with them. And so the day that I focused less on who was going in somewhere else and more on who was coming in our location, I think was the day that it clicked for me. I think it was the day that it clicked for the business and it's certainly something that we train. We want people to support all of Springfield. Downtown, West, South, East, North. And so we've always had that special place in our heart for downtown. We'd love to go back down there. Financially, look, it's not a joke. We are upside down. You know, we're trying to figure out how to right the ship. There is an amount of money, but there's no amount of money that we had access to. that could have fixed and made us whole and really, really, really on solid ground. So it's just been kind of a scramble. Hey, how do we, how do we make sure that we take care of this location so that we can potentially look forward to another location? We'd love to open another location downtown. I think there's a lot of opportunities down there. You know, with the new I don't want to say push, but I think the new, the reevaluation of where did Springfield start. Springfield didn't start where we're at, the corner of Isles and Chatham. You know, it started in the heart of Springfield. And I always said it's kind of like a beating heart. It's kind of like how how downtown goes and how that pumps and it flows out from there is how strong we can be as a community. But you can't forget about what started Springfield and where Springfield really is on the map. And so you still have to have that focus. And I think, the love of Springfield and the red hearts and the heartbeat and the downtown is a real thing. So if we can figure out how to get back down there again, wonderful. If I can never figure out how to get back down there again, I'll still feel complete. I still feel like, you know, we did something halfway decent here in my lifetime, but it is a goal. We've had kind of a, you know, I want to say the beginning of a resurgence of downtown. I think maybe, I don't want to put a date on it, but I think we're past our all-time low. I think we're on the way up. And as a community, I think we should be really, really excited about that. there's always going to be a lot of folks online in certain circles that, downtown is, it's dead. It's not coming back. It is coming back. And I think it hit that all-time low. And I think you see some wonderful businesses that are reopening. I think you see a resurgence of energy. And I know that it's going to get where it needs to be. And what I don't want to say is it's going to get back to the way that it was. Because the way that it was, was that the best that downtown Springfield could ever be? I don't think so. There is no was. I think it's how are we going to get to where we need to be and want to be. So there's a was and a want. And I think if you look at the resurgence that's kind of happening downtown, forget was, let's get to where we want to be. We don't want to be compared to what we were in 2006 or back in 1975 when there was a movie theater down there. I actually have no idea if there was a movie theater down there in 1975, but I know there was a movie theater at one point down there. And so was that the best that I think downtown could have ever been? Probably not, but let's get to where it needs to be because that's where we want it. I know that sounds weird.
Elizabeth Wake:
No, I understand that completely and I agree. I think we take so much time talking about, all the detriments of downtown, but what we need to do is look towards the future and the progress and the where do we want it to go and work on that.
Mark Forinash:
Right, I think you're right. Want is 100% in your control. When you look back and you're like, oh, could I have done this different as a business? Could I have made a decision better? Yeah, you know, maybe you could have. but you can't fix that. You can only grow and then really make something cool in the future. And I think that's, I think that's a really strong point.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah, I agree.
Mark Forinash:
And this, I will say this fire on Adams, the amount of impact that it had on so many businesses and so many people. And we oftentimes forget about, forget the business. we often forget about I think the people behind it. we have people that were living above us there. and we oftentimes forget about even more than people I think we think about the cats that were next to us and things like that. And so there's so many wide impacts of an event like this that I think we're all trying to rebuild. Were there some missteps potentially by leadership or by business owners or by people? You know what, maybe there were, but it's that same thing, it's were. Now how do we get to the want? How do we get to the future? And so how do we learn from that a little bit and then just work really hard at making sure that we prepare ourselves for something else coming down the road? Because that's the one thing that doesn't change is we're always going to have impacts. It's how in which we choose to, I think, persevere through those that'll kind of get us to that next level. And so timing is, it's just bad timing. It's bad timing for so many of us down there. were a lot of people that were able to reopen. There were some people that were not able to reopen. There's some displaced folks. And so it's just going to take time, but I think we can get there. So, and don't forget about downtown and, you know, really for all the what's changed in our society is there's a lot of folks behind the keyboard. Just remember that business owners, people everywhere, we have feelings. We're not just a commodity. And so just take that into account and just take a step back and, you know, did this really make my day as bad as what it was? If not, let's all work together and get it to the day in which we can look back and say, you know what, it was, let's get to where we want.
Elizabeth Wake:
Yeah, I agree. Now I have my personal favorites at Cafe Moxa, of course. I personally love the salty dog. I like to get it blended and with the cold foam.
Mark Forinash:
Lovely.
Elizabeth Wake:
It is delicious.
Mark Forinash:
Thank you.
Elizabeth Wake:
What is your favorite?
Mark Forinash:
Gosh, it changes. I'll always go back to as simple as it is a cookie. I will say one of the things that we did change, I know I said we didn't change a whole lot, but we had a cookie called the Brianne, which was the first baker that I ever hired in Springfield. I named it after her. It was chocolate, coconut, oatmeal, walnuts, and raisins. Wildly popular cookie. Sets us apart. Very different, very unique. And so when we did move to the west side, I chose to rename it to Baker, Baker's Cookie. Now Baker happens to be my son. So most people are like, oh, well, that makes sense. You named it after your son. But that is one of the things that we changed. But you know what? Just making a really good cookie, as simple as it is and as simple as it sounds, there really is a science behind it. You know, a recipe on a cookie, we have one out right now, you know, probably took two months to fine tune. So it isn't just throwing a little bit of flour and a little bit of sugar and I don't know, let's toss in some white chocolate or something like that. I mean, you really have to fine tune it and it has to bake properly and it has to bake like all the others and all these things. So there really is a science behind it. But I think making a really good cookie is probably my favorite thing. Next would probably be our most popular, which would be our chicken pot pie. yes. So that was, that's just one of those things that I could eat year round. I am a crazy pot pie fan, soup fan. And I feel like you can eat it in the middle of July and you can eat it in the middle of a snowstorm. And so I think those two are probably my favorite. I think they just really hit close to home more than anything else. And I think that's where a lot of my passion came from is growing up and helping and or watching my mom cook. And we didn't have the opportunity to eat out a lot in the town that we grew up in southern Missouri and we didn't have the funds necessarily to be able to do that. And so going out to eat was such a treat. And so how do you recreate that for somebody else? Most events or most times you're together with your family, traditionally the ones that you will always remember are the ones that are around your kitchen island or your table at dinner every single night. when there's funerals, everybody gets together and they share a bite to eat and they remember their loved one that is gone. But they also kind of turn it into a holy cow, I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to know this person for however long it was potentially. And weddings, and we can go on and on and on, but it's all centered and it all traditionally involves some sort of food or drink. So that if we can do something like that and help somebody, I think, be engaged or to have a feeling about anything and it can involve something that we produced. Man, that's my ultimate jam is not selfishly, but I'm kind of that guy that I revel in the fact that you have a smile on your face when you're eating something that we created or that you loved something that we do. From a favorite item to just a favorite feeling, I think that's the difference.
Elizabeth Wake:
And if people want to, they can order those things either for delivery or even, I know that you do the pot pies even in family size sheet pans.
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, we do. We do. It's 4 1/2 pounds, so it should feed a pretty good family. Or at least a hungry guy like myself. I could probably eat the whole dang thing. But yeah, I mean, you can, you know, we want to be as involved with community as we can. both socially and stomachly. That's great.
Elizabeth Wake:
And so, you can have Moxo at your house and enjoy it at home.
Mark Forinash:
Yeah, you can. And whether it's pickup or delivery or curbside or whatever the case may be, we'd love to have just a part of your day. And it's kind of one of the things that we came up with, you know, besides Adams family when we were downtown. And that was really created, family was an important thing, an important aspect of that because we were all on Adams Street. Could have been anything but family. And your family may be a family of one or two, or it may be a family of 15. But it is probably the most important thing that you'll ever do with your life. And I think it is the most impact that you can make on your life and somebody else's is belonging to a family and at least having that feeling.
Elizabeth Wake:
To wrap it up, what would you say to an aspiring business owner? What advice would you give?
Mark Forinash:
First of all, don't do it. No, I mean, I've often told a lot of people that I've worked with over the years and that ask me, I think some of those questions, should I open this? Should I do this? What do you think of this idea? First of all, I always laugh and I say don't. Just get a job and go home and not have to worry about anything. And not necessarily worry about anything at night, but get a job that you can turn it off when you leave. But then I take an inward look at myself and I never turn it off and I always take it home and I feel like I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing and not really taking it home and forcing it upon my family. I've gotten really good at that over the years. But you have that passion to do. You have that passion to be. And it isn't about going anywhere and knowing that you own a business. I think it's that passion of how can you, if you're a business of 1 or a business of 1000, how can you impact the lives that are around you? The most important thing when you open a business is it isn't to make all the decisions. It isn't to have a better balance of work and life outside of work because that just does not happen.
Elizabeth Wake:
It doesn't exist.
Mark Forinash:
It does not. It is wholeheartedly in how can you impact other people's lives. And so a sense of giving or a sense of leadership It's a strong thing to have and the decisions that you make impact others. So I think first and foremost, you have to think about that. And then secondly, look, you got to follow your passion. You got to do what you want to do. And if you have that passion and you work as hard as you possibly can, you may fall down. But at some point, you're going to pick back up and you're going to do what you want to do more because it wasn't a business, but more because you're going to impact the people that are around you. And so it's hard. I mean, there's businesses that open and close and it isn't an easy path. And I think that extremely well. But at the same time, we learn on all those openings and we learn on all these closings and we probably do a little bit better job moving forward than if we never would have taken that step. So take that risk, take that step and follow your love.
Elizabeth Wake:
Well, thank you for your time and for your insight.
Mark Forinash:
Thank you. I appreciate you. Thanks.
Jeff Williams:
Elizabeth Wake has been interviewing Mark Forinash, the owner of Cafe Moxo. Cafe Moxo was originally located in downtown Springfield on Adams Street, part of the Adams family. After a fire, Mark and his family had to reevaluate and decide what to do. They've moved to their new location on West Isles and Chatham Road. Chicken pot pie. Fresh squeezed orange juice. Peanut butter cookie. You've been listening to Community Voices on 91.9. NPR Illinois.