NWI Business Ins and Outs: Rocco’s Tavern, Little Harts Play Cafe and FitFuel Cafe opening

The Farinas, who worked at Victory Italian and other Chicago restaurants, are trying something different with Rocco’s Tavern. The new upscale oyster bar will serve raw oysters from both coasts, steaks, chops and burgers.

“There will be no Italian. We just wanted to do something different,” Joe Farina said. “We like Michigan City. We like the neighborhood and what’s going on there.”

Rocco’s Tavern will feature an old-school Miami decor and a 1960s steakhouse vibe with cream suede booths. It will have a full bar with a curated wine selection, bourbon, whiskeys and cocktails. The 3,000-square-foot restaurant will seat about 60 diners inside and another 20-25 on an outdoor patio.

It will offer fancy desserts and is looking at tableside desserts like cherries jubilee or bananas foster. It will serve strips, filets, tomahawks, lamb chops, pork chops, Beef Wellington and Steak Diane, giving diners the option of encrusting steaks in blue cheese or gorgonzola cheese. Seafood options will include lobster tails, tuna tartare, a seafood tower and assortments of four to six oysters with mignonette sauce and a house-made cocktail sauce with freshly ground horseradish.

It will open in February next door to Cafe Farina, which offers traditional Italian cuisine.

Well-established as a Chicago chef, Joe Farina has cooked at events like Chicago Gourmet, Taste of Travel, The Grand Chef’s Experience and Bacon Fest. He founded the Victory Restaurant Group that has had locations in River North, the South Loop, Elmhurst and Oak Park. His wife Yvonne Farina is a certified sommelier who’s worked in many acclaimed Chicago restaurants.

They made Michigan City their adopted home and opened Farina’s Supper Club in Michigan City, Cafe Farina in Michigan City and Farina’s Belly Flop in Long Beach.

Their flagship restaurant, Farina’s Supper Club, closed for months after suffering a kitchen fire in February. The traditional Wisconsin-style supper club recently reopened at 3311 Pottawattamie Trail.

Farina’s Supper Club first opened in 2021, offering an elegant dining experience.

“Steaks are really popular. So are a lot of meats. The Pork Chop Sinatra is really big there,” he said. “It’s a supper club. We try to keep it simple. It’s hearty good food. We cook everything to order. It’s the stuff I grew up on. I call it Italian-American food. It’s half Melrose Park, Illinois where I grew up and half Italian.”

Little Harts Play Cafe in Dyer combines a coffee shop with an indoor playground for children up to age 6.

Jessica Wood and Garrett Wood, married parents of a 2-year-old, opened the new business at 2011 Hart St. just off the corner of U.S. 30 and Hart Street. 

Little Harts Play Cafe, whose name plays off its address, features an innovative indoor playground with a miniature town hall and other play spaces that are meant to promote creativity, socializing and physical development. 

“We’re parents. We know how hard it for small kids to find public places,” Jessica Wood said. “Kids can’t stay still for long. This is somewhere where kids can run around while their parents enjoy a good cup of coffee. When we moved back from Mississippi, we struggled to make friends with other parents. We thought we might awas well open a play cafe. They have them in the northern suburbs of Chicago but there’s nothing like it here.”

The 2,800-square-foot business is divided between the coffee shop and the 1,800-square-foot place space that features play areas like a Dyer Town Hall, a police station, a grocery store and a climbing structure.

“We focus on imaginative play, she said. “We couldn’t find anything like that when we moved to Dyer. There are play structures like McDonald’s PlayPlaces but nothing where kids can use their creativity and play as firemen or police officers.”

Little Harts Play Coffee, which is located in a former accounting office, plans to host birthday parties, church groups and other group events. It plans to offer the community programming, such as help with post-partum depression. 

It sources all its coffee from Just Be Coffee Roasters in Munster and offers a full range of coffee drinks, including seasonal items like peppermint mochas, pumpkin spice lattes and hot chocolate. It will offer pastries and baked goods, and is looking at bringing over Mexican goods from the neighboring La Cecina restaurant.

FitFuel Cafe is now powering workouts in the new Hammond Destination YMCA at the site of the former Woodmar Mall at 6532 Indianapolis Boulevard.

Mike Mucha and Dan Edwards opened the cafe, which sells smoothies, wraps and sandwiches, as well as fresh fruit and healthier chips.

“We sell healthy, substantial foods,” Mucha said. “We’re try to give good healthy options and serve good things to the community. It’s approachable and family-oriented.”

Popular wraps include the chicken Caesar and buffalo chicken. A vegetarian option will be added soon.

The peanut butter and banana smoothie is popular with weightlifters looking to consume protein to build muscle after a workout. It caters to people who come to the new YMCA to work out, do cardi go swimming or take ninja, gymnastics or ballet classes. In the late afternoon and evenings, after school lets out, it caters to a lot of middle school and high school kids.

“We try to make sure it’s approachable and in young people’s budgets,” Mucha said.

FitFuel Cafe is in the brand new, multimillion-dollar YMCA’s lobby, where it’s surrounding by seating where people can hang out, decompress after a workout, wait to be picked up or enjoy a snack.

Mucha previously worked at a Dairy Queen and in customer service. Edwards is one of the owners of seven Jimmy John restaurants in Northwest Indiana. They are interested in potentially expanding the FitFuel concept to other YMCAs.