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Over the past twelve years Travis Mohlenbrink has established himself as one of Peoria’s most successful restaurant owners, developing various casual restaurants, with a twist on traditional flavors. However, when he was first choosing his potential career path, owning restaurants wasn’t at the forefront of his mind.

“My degree is actually in elementary education,” Mohlenbrink said. “I did my student teaching my senior year and decided that it was not going to be something that I wanted to do.”

While Mohlenbrink attended college at the University of Illinois Chicago, he also worked at a restaurant downtown, and met Doug Gooding who was a district partner for Brinker International, a large restaurant corporation that owns Chili’s.

“I called Doug and said, ‘I think I’m ready to jump into this restaurant thing and see what it is you can come up with for me,’” Mohlenbrink said. “Within two weeks he had an opportunity with the Chili’s organization, so I went right into working for Chili’s and I opened restaurants across the country.”

After opening various Chili’s, Panera Breads, and other chain restaurants, Mohlenbrink decided he wanted to do his own thing, and settled on Peoria to do so because of it’s business possibilities.

“I was living in Bloomington at the time and originally my whole idea of being in the restaurant industry or hospitality industry was going to revolve around catering,” Mohlenbrink said. “When I looked at all the areas in central Illinois to decide where the best opportunity would be, with the medical facilities … the big business with Caterpillar and RLI being located in Peoria I felt like the best opportunity I had was here.”

With this idea in mind Mohlenbrink rented a cheap facility on NE Adams street and opened Cracked Pepper which focusses mainly on corporate-style catering and also features a bakery and café.

The Maple Bacon Log at Cracked Pepper on NE Adams.

“We wanted to be the people that a lawyer’s office would call or CAT might be able to have an off-site meeting somewhere, so they would call us to cater their lunch for that,” Mohlenbrink said. “Catering is still the biggest thing that we do as far as volume.”

After Cracked Pepper’s success grew exponentially, Mohlenbrink decided he wanted to do something bigger, which lead to the opening of his first restaurant Salt, followed later by Sugar, Thyme and Cayenne.

Each of these restaurants brings a unique twist of flavor and decor to traditional restaurants concepts.

“Essentially, I have an idea of a concept and get together with my executive chef, Vince Swanson,” Mohlenbrink said. “Once the food is figured out that is when I start to look at what the feel is inside of that concept.”

At Sugar, a wood-fired pizza bistro, as well as at all his dining establishments, Mohlenbrink has stuck to the business model of bringing his customers good service and high quality food at a fair price.

Sugar Wood-Fired Bistro serves up some unique pizzas including Buffalo Chicken Pizza.

“Probably what keeps people coming back is the consistency of the product,” Sugar manager Andy Sepich said. “That’s really important to any restaurant is to be able to consistently put out the same product, and it delivers every time.”

In addition to bringing consistency in products and service, his newest restaurant Cayenne, a Mexican taqueria, has brought an authentic and casual atmosphere to downtown Peoria Heights.

Cayenne is serving up authentic Mexican cuisine in Peoria Heights.

“Travis put a lot of work into detailing this place to give it the full effect of a dining experience and I think he’s done a very good job of accomplishing that,” Cayenne manager Mr. Chung said. “It’s really authentic Mexican style decor and we really, really want to bring that to the table at one-hundred percent, versus just opening the doors of a Mexican restaurant.”

When Mohlenbrink isn’t focussed on developing new concepts, he enjoys giving back to the Peoria community. He is actively involved with multiple organizations including Boys Scout of America, Quest Charter Academy, St. Jude, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peoria.

“It’s something that I try to do as much as I can for the children in our community,” Mohlenbrink said. “Whether it’s a senior in high school to a sick child or a child that is a little less fortunate than maybe I was as a kid. I try to give back as much as I can to the youth of our community.”

Although it wasn’t the career he ended up choosing, Mohlenbrink also had the chance to return to teaching for a few years as an adjunct professor at Illinois Central College, where he taught in their culinary arts program.

“One of the greatest challenges that I have today, and from day one still, is finding people who are passionate about this industry that want to make this their career, so it’s an important program to me,” Mohlenbrink said. “I’ve definitely seen the fruits of some of the labor that’s happened there. I’ve got a number of students from there that work for me today.”

Bringing new passionate people into the restaurant industry will be vital for Mohlenbrink as he has multiple new concepts floating around in his mind as he looks toward the future.

“We’re looking to do an additional one or two projects in the next few years,” Mohlenbrink said. “Maybe in the next few months I’ll be able to announce what those projects are, but what I can assure you is that they’ll be different.”