Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eamonn Mcparland. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Eamonn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

In the matter of about 6 months, my twin daughters were born 8 weeks premature, I left my partnership in my restaurant group and Covid happened. A lot of the reason why I left the partnership was because I only wanted to be held accountable by myself and my family. So when an opportunity arose to start a pop up(which eventually turned into a full time restaurant) I named it roselily after my two daughters, Mariana Rose & Liliana Grace.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been cooking for most of my life. I discovered my passion for food in my early 20s when I realized food was so much more than the food served in my family’s restaurant. I never went to culinary school, I never worked for a famous or awarded chef. Through lots of hard work and determination (and a little bit of luck) I find myself now as the owner & chef of Roselily.

Roselily celebrates its 4th anniversary this month. Over the past four years, Roselily has grown from a small pop up restaurant to one of only two AAA rated four diamond restaurants in South Bend, delivering innovative cuisine and exceptional hospitality. We are the only restaurant in the greater South Bend area to offer a chef’s tasting menu. I think I’m most proud of the team that we built, having a group of individuals who truly care is an amazing feeling.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We opened our restaurant in the middle of the pandemic, pre vaccine. It was really challenging. We were barely making enough money to pay the staff. Most of our traffic was carryout and we’d see maybe 5-10 people dine inside with us per night.. We tailored our menu to be more carryout friendly, offering sandwiches and items that would “carry” well but that wasn’t cutting it. We decided to go the other way and maximize the experience we were giving to the people that dined in with us. We decided to offer a blind chef’s tasting menu, which was pretty unheard of in our area. I figured, if these people are going to come out and risk their lives to come support us then let’’s give them something really special. It didn’t take long for word to spread of what we were doing and we started to pick up steam, and after a few months, and the first round of vaccines we were off to the races. It had been my dream for years to offer a chef’s tasting and chef’s tastings are now what we’re known for.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2022 our business had grown to previously unthinkable heights and our space wasn’t large enough. We didn’t have any space for storage, no walk in, no where to build out our wine list. We took an enormous risk and decided to move the location of our restaurant. It was a little further outside of the heart of downtown but I knew we had to bet on ourselves. I don’t know if I would offer this as advice but i don’t come from money so I maxed out my credit cards, took out a large credit card processing loan, borrowed money from my future landlord, financed my kitchen equipment and did a lot of the construction work myself with my dad. We kept the old location open to the very last minute until we could make the switch and then we moved. It was scary, it was slow, I was terrified that I made a mistake. But in the end though my calculations were right, most people sought us out online and googled directions to our space. The old adage “location, location, location” didn’t apply to us. If we continued to offer a unique experience and great food & hospitality people would find us and they did.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Roselilysouthbend.com
• Instagram: @roselilysouthbend
• Facebook: @roselilysouthbend
• Yelp: Roselily

Image Credits

Matt Dunlap
@dunlaper on instagram for all of the photos