Naperville restaurant specializing in poutine to employ people with developmental disabilities

Jan. 7—Thi Tram Nguyen has two goals for Chez François Poutinerie, her new downtown Naperville restaurant.

First, she wants to introduce poutine, a Canadian comfort food that originated in Quebec, to the Naperville area. Poutine is a mix of French fries and cheese curds topped with brown gravy.

But it's also a very personal endeavor: she wants to make jobs available for teens and adults with disabilities, like her 16-year-old son François, for whom the restaurant is named.

François has autism and like repetitive tasks, which makes restaurant work ideal for him, Nguyen said. While the local school districts do a great job of nurturing those skills in childhood and early adulthood, there aren't many employment options when the school programs end, she said.

"The problem is after 23 years old, there is no more service," Nguyen said. "So many parents (with children with disabilities) have called me that their adult kids don't do anything because they cannot find a job."

Chez François Poutinerie will open at 22 E. Chicago Ave. in four or five months, she said. When it does, she hopes half her staff wil

l be people with developmental disabilities, she said.

The restaurant will incorporate a "peer buddy" system, pairing an employee with a disability with an employee who does not, Nguyen said. They will be trained to work together, she said, and both will have skills they can bring with them to new jobs.

"Many businesses are not equipped with the resources to train them. But when you have repetitive tasks like in restaurants, (people with disabilities) are some of the best employees," she said.

The menu will be simple, offering eight varieties of poutine and Asian-flavored salads, some of which will be vegetarian and gluten-free, Nguyen said. Among the poutine options will be one made with truffle and another named "hangover," presumably designed for someone who has over imbibed.

Nguyen is from Montreal in Quebec and wants to bring the popular Canadian dish to her current hometown of Naperville. Few restaurants outside of Canada have a poutine on their menu, and even fewer make it their main draw, she said.

You'll find it in some Chicago restaurants and at least one, Demis Poutine, has made it their centerpiece, but it's still a rarity in most suburbs.

"Why not a poutine restaurant? We don't have one in Naperville and you can't really find one in Chicago," she said.

raguerrero@tribpub.com

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