The Obama Center Brings In Some South Side Pride With Its Food Lineup

Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama attend a groundbreaking ceremony in 2021 for the Obama Center. | Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Meet the Chicago native powering the center’s food options

Two years after opening up bids, the Obama Foundation has announced the vendors that will handle the food and beverages for the Obama Presidential Center.

Various spaces will fill the 19-acre site in Jackson Park, about eight miles south of Downtown Chicago. The project includes a presidential museum and library with officials currently estimating a spring 2026 opening. Beyond the main center, there are various spaces, including an NBA-sized basketball court, that will be available for private event rentals, and multiple vendors will handle different aspects from coffee shops to fine dining.

Part of the challenge for the foundation was to balance finding established vendors with experience handling large crowds and giving smaller companies an opportunity. For example, smaller companies may not be able to afford the high insurance costs needed to operate within a project of the Obama Center’s scale. The foundation also stressed that it wanted to bring local businesses into the fold. The Obamas have celebrated Chicago’s culinary scene. While living in Chicago, the former president even appeared on PBS Chicago’s Check, Please! They’ve also shared various takes on Chicago’s pizza scene.

That’s why Chicago native Cliff Rome, a community-minded chef with decades of restaurant experience from catering to fine dining, teamed up with Palo Alto, California-based Bon Appetit Management to pitch their services to the Obama Center. The foundation, on Thursday, February 21, announced they had awarded the contract to Rome and Bon Appetit.

The partners previously worked together at the University of Chicago and were already looking to expand their partnership when the Obama Center opportunity presented itself. Rome, who founded his catering arm, Rome’s Joy Companies, in 2001, will combine his efforts with Bon Appetit — a company responsible for handling food concessions at venues such as Chase Center in San Francisco, the restaurant at the Getty Center in LA, and the restaurant at the Cleveland Art Museum — to form a new entity called BAMJoy.

Rome, who grew up in Englewood, has a lengthy resume including running Peach’s on 47th, a restaurant founded in 2015 in Bronzeville. He’s operated five businesses under Rome’s Joy Companies, which have, in turn, provided educational opportunities for youngsters within those predominantly Black communities, giving kids a launching pad toward successful careers in various fields. Not everyone has access to this kind of mentoring and what Rome sees as his legacy in the community. “We’ve been in Bronzeville since 2001, right? All the hard work that we’ve done, we’re now seeing it [blossom].”

While Rome isn’t ready to talk about menus, he does say the Obama Center’s offerings will be diverse, from casual to fine dining. He also realizes that food isn’t the centerpiece of the project. He calls the food the “backdrop or a byproduct of the experience,” but he’s also excited to deliver something uniquely Chicagoan.

Restaurant work is grueling, but rewarding through the relationships Rome has built through his long career. Rome no longer feels that he needs to put unneeded pressure on himself to reach a goal and has found industry members he can rely on: “I have a lot of friends, and that’s the beauty of food service,” Rome says. “I get a chance to perform these acts on this beautiful stage, and I get a chance to bring a lot of folks with them.”

Another important component of the project is sustainability. Foodservice has to contend with plastic utensils and food waste. Rome mentions a desire to be more eco-friendly and to work with companies committed to sustainability: “That’s part of the mission and the belief that we have as well,” he says.

Rome and Bon Appetit aren’t the only parties involved. Paramount Events, a familiar name to Chicagoans that handles events including the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards, is one of eight vendors that handle off-site catering in the center’s private event spaces. That includes the aforementioned basketball court, called Home Court. Paramount founder and CEO Jodi Fyfe says the court has a capacity of about 500 and represents the largest venue at the Obama Center.

“This is a great opportunity for the city of Chicago, and it’s in an area that needs more traffic, it needs more exposure, it’s in an area that needs help driving jobs,” Fyfe says. “It’s just a win-win for everybody.”

While event booking will be done directly through the center, Fyfe says one of Avondale-based Parmount’s responsibilities will be to push clients toward the venue. As with other private event spaces the company works with, Paramount will feature the Home Court on the company’s website.

Another woman-run business, Big Delicious Planet out of West Town, is among Home Court’s eight catering vendor options. Owner and culinary director Heidi Coudal says the selection process was extensive, but she’s thrilled: “Big Delicious Planet is the No. 1 green caterer in the country with our own urban farm on three city lots adjacent to our kitchen and our sustainability and green practices aligned with those of the Obama Presidential Center,” she writes in an emailed statement

Rome has been inundated with phone notifications since Thursday’s announcement. But he’s still living life, ensuring his 16-year-old son packed the right socks for his basketball game.

The chef hosted the Obamas in 2023 at a dinner at his Blanc Gallery in Bronzeville. The chef recalls a charming Barack Obama regaling attendees with stories, sprinkling bits of humor. The former president has yet to reach out.

“I didn’t get that text yet,” Rome says. “So that one might be coming.”