From The Indianapolis Star

Five miles west of the Indianapolis Colts training facility on 56th Street is a little bit of Chicago. Sweet Home Chicago, which opened two weeks ago in Brownsburg, serves the kind of food owner Barry Neary has missed since he left the Windy City for Indianapolis 18 years ago.

"I have never regretted leaving Chicago, but I always missed the food," Neary said.

What kind of food is he talking about? All beef hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches and Polish sausages.

"I wanted people from Chicago to walk in and feel like they're home," Neary said.

Like so many small businesses, the idea for the restaurant percolated for a long time before Neary decided to start his own business. He was marketing software for a local company when, in June 2001, he decided to take a break and spend a summer with his two kids.

By September of that year, Neary was ready to join the work force again. But after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, Neary couldn't find a job in his field. It was time to begin working in earnest on the project, he decided.

At first, Neary thought about opening a franchise of a popular Chicago restaurant called Portillo's Hot Dogs Inc. But the company wasn't interested in opening stores in Indiana, Neary said. Disappointed, but undaunted, Neary decided to use the popular Chicago eatery as the model for his own place.

After nailing down the concept, it was time to find a place for his store. Neary looked at locations throughout the metropolitan area before settling on Brownsburg. Because the location was formerly a Jimmy John's gourmet sandwich store, Neary said it was relatively easy and inexpensive to add grills and stoves and fryers to begin serving hot food. Neary, 49, financed the business primarily with his own savings.

Brownsburg resident Rick Francissen grew up on Chicago's westside. Like Neary, he moved to Indiana 17 years ago, but didn't leave his taste for hot dogs and Polish sausage behind.

Christmas week, Francissen and his family ate at Sweet Home Chicago three times.

"This is like a real good thing," he said. "When we go up to Chicago to see family, we always have to go to a hot dog stand."

Now he doesn't have to make the three-hour drive up I-65 to get a taste of home. "This is just like it is up in Chicago when you go," he said.

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