In naming her restaurant Flo, Renee Carswell declared her intentions with a play on words. On one level the name alludes to Brasserie Flo, the famous Parisian eatery effervescing with bons vivants. Then there’s “flow” as explored by author and University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: the state of total involvement and joy achieved during inner-directed experiences. And the conversation at this neighborhood hangout flows, too. “I wanted something short and memorable, like the Gap,” says Carswell.
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Carswell, who opened her convivial West Town restaurant in 1998, once thought she would make pots, not stir them: she has an undergraduate degree in painting and drawing from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and has studied with renowned potter Betty Woodman in Boulder, Colorado. As with other women who were hippies in the 60s and struggled to find their footing as the decades progressed, her career path has been as colorful and variegated as the African beads she once sold. “I’m basically an artist with a short attention span that didn’t realize I was an entrepreneur until I was about 45,” she says. Husband and business partner Rodney Carswell, on the other hand, sees Flo as a kind of full-circle return to the couple’s summers working at his parents’ restaurant, the Shed.
Suddenly Renee had the chance to be a full-time mother if she wished. Or get a job in a gallery. She was leaning toward going back for another degree when a friend pointed out that she would be entering the job market at 51. “That’s when I decided to open the bead shop,” she says.
With chilies and blue corn tortillas as the main carryovers from his parents’ restaurant, Rodney often works like a painter recombining elements in new configurations: green chili chicken enchiladas, portobello quesadillas, “green eggs.” In a kind of mini heresy, Flo’s green sauce ignores tomatillos and instead requires roasting 40 pounds of poblanos a week. Egg twist bread for their French toast comes from Alliance Bakery, and preservative-free tequila-chicken-black bean sausage from Han’s. Renee buys organic blue corn tortillas retail to avoid getting versions colored with blue dye. Like Rodney’s parents, who bought from neighboring farmers, Renee would love to use local organics if distribution were easier.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Dorothy Perry.
