“I grew up in the kitchen. I didn’t walk in the front door of the restaurant, I walked in the kitchen door.” Gabriela Littleton has a little more skin in the game as director of banquets and private dining at Chicago steakhouse staple the Erie Cafe. To be exact, she has four generations worth, having spent the past two years working in concert with her grandfather, father, uncle and sister at the Lenzi-family owned business.

Growing up in the restaurant world didn’t initially pave the way to Littleton’s current career. “We were really pushed NOT to be involved in the business,” she says. “My dad [owner of the eponymous E.J.’s Place in Skokie] would say, ‘It’s so hard, you don’t ever want to do it, you need to go do something else!’”