Fourteen years ago, Salvatore and Briana Cardone were living paycheck to paycheck when they won $40,000 on a scratch-off lottery ticket. That could only mean one thing to the self-taught culinary couple. They could finally open the restaurant they'd been dreaming about since the day they met six years earlier.

"One of the first questions Sal asked me was 'What are you doing for the rest of your life?' I told him I wanted to own my own restaurant, sit back with a glass of wine and watch my kids run around," Cardone said. "And then he asked, 'Oh, you want to get married?'" Thus, Mambo Italiano in Mundelein was born. And yes, the place is named after the Rosemary Clooney song.