After a break-in at their Beverly restaurant, Brian and Linda Flippin reopened Flippin Flavors the same day. Backed by their community, they turned hardship into hope (Photo Credit Tacuma Roeback).
On a chilly Saturday morning in late March, Brian Flippin was shopping for supplies when he got the alert no small business owner ever wants to receive.
His Beverly restaurant, Flippin Flavors, had been burglarized.
Security footage captured the suspect smashing through the front glass, rummaging behind the counter for a cash register, and even slipping into the kitchen. But after leaving with nothing more than some soda and a container of chips, the suspect had nothing to show for his efforts—Flippin Flavors doesn’t take cash.
“The running joke is, this is definitely a person that’s never been here before,” Brian told the Defender. “He’s not a customer because, in five years, everybody knows we never took cash.”
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Still, that kind of disruption can rattle any business. But Brian, a 2023 Chicago Defender Men of Excellence honoree, and his wife, Linda, weren’t about to let that stop them. They cleaned up the damage and opened their doors the very same day—glass shattered, winds blowing through until it was fixed later that day—because, as Brian put it, “There’s no PTO. We’re not open; we don’t make money.”
The burglary suspect, a 58-year-old man, was arrested an hour later. But what lingered wasn’t fear or frustration. It was the deep well of community support that followed—a reflection of how the Flippins built their business not just on food, but on faith, service and consistency.
And it all started with a marinade.
A Recipe Born from Charity
Before there was a storefront, there was Linda’s jerk chicken. She made it while serving meals through Beautiful People Giving, a nonprofit she co-founded to feed Chicago’s unhoused population. She’d grill jerk chicken for the You Can Make It shelter in Englewood and during weekend flag football games on the city’s South Side.
The dish and the sauce caught people’s attention. Friends praised her flavor, her greens, her technique. But she didn’t like the salt-heavy store-bought marinades packed with preservatives.
So she started making her own.
“My wife is one of the only people I know that can taste her way through a sauce,” Brian said. “Three or four tries, and she got it down. I said, ‘This is fire. This is good.’”
Hustling with a Vision
That was 2016. The Flippins started selling their homemade marinade like mixtapes—door-to-door, restaurant-to-restaurant, even carrying bottles in handbags at lounges.
They secured shelf space at Bonne Sante in Hyde Park and approached Mariano’s and Sam’s Club with their preservative-free sauce.
They didn’t have a commercial kitchen. They didn’t have investors. But they had each other.
“We were outside like, ‘Hey, do you want to buy some marinade?’” Brian said. “We had a vision.”
Forced to Evolve—and Ready for It
Brian Flippin (Photo Credit: Tacuma Roeback).
They leased a small space in Beverly to sell marinades. But city officials told them they’d have to serve food, too.
That pivot turned out to be the spark.
Flippin Flavors became known for its cheesesteaks, hoagies, and lemonades—each dish seasoned with their homemade sauces. And it paid off. In 2023, they won Best Philly in Chicago and began catering events across the city.
“We didn’t want to run a restaurant,” Brian said. “But we built something special.”
Opening the Doors Through Grief
The restaurant opened in 2019. Brian’s father had recently passed.
Before he died, he gave his son a charge: “Always take care of your mom.”
Brian made a vow of his own: “I promised him I’d make the Flippin name famous. I’ll put it in lights.”
But the pandemic came soon after, shutting down restaurants and sending the city into survival mode.
“I talked to my dad like, ‘Pop, I’m failing right now,’” Brian said. “I don’t know what to do.”
When the City Shut Down, They Stepped Up
The Flippins found a way forward—through charity.
Linda asked on social media: Who needs groceries? Who needs hot meals?
They delivered food to more than 60 seniors across the city, loading their truck with meals and driving to Hyde Park, South Loop, Chatham, South Shore—wherever the need was.
CPS schools noticed.
Soon, they were asked to provide lunch for hundreds of students, the children of frontline workers who had nowhere else to go. They delivered. And they did it without funding.
“All we had was faith and sales,” Brian said. “But every time we needed help, a big catering order would come in. We made it work.”
A Bright Day, a Full House
Photo Credit: Tacuma Roeback
On a recent Saturday in April, they were working together as always, both rotating between the kitchen and register, bringing out customers’ food and giving daps, handshakes and hugs to their regulars, whom they call their Flippin Flavors faithfuls. And on this day in April, a steady stream of customers poured through those doors on a brilliantly sunny day in April.
It was a scene far removed from what occurred less than a month ago, and certainly miles and kilometers away from what they endured when they had to shut down their business at the onset of a pandemic.
But Brian credits his wife for helping them maneuver through this period.
An Angel in the Kitchen
Brian and Linda Flippin (Photo Credit: Tacuma Roeback).
Throughout all of it, Brian leaned on Linda. She’s his partner, his best friend, his angel.
“Where I’m weak, she’s strong. Where she’s weak, I’m strong,” he said. “We don’t argue. Not in ten years.”
They share everything—money, responsibility, purpose.
“We’re one,” he said. “The goal isn’t to be single while married. It’s to be united.”
Built on Service, Fueled by Community
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Walk into Flippin Flavors today and you’ll be greeted with a smile, a joke, good music and great food.
“We love good food,” Brian said. “But better than that, we love good service. And when you give both, people come back.”
The music on that day was exceptional, too, with classic and neo-soul tunes from artists like former Five Stairsteps member Keni Burke and Kindred the Family Soul flowing from an unseen sound system.
After the break-in, Ald. Matt O’Shea and the 19th Ward rallied around them.
“They were all over it,” Brian said. “People saying, ‘They feed everybody. They always greet you with a smile.’
“My customers, my friends, my family—they think this way of my wife and myself. That makes me feel good.”
A Word to Dreamers
Brian gets approached often by aspiring entrepreneurs. They want advice. They want mentorship.
He tells them what he knows.
“Write down your vision. Write the steps. Plan. Execute. Be consistent,” he said.
He adds one more thing: Find your person.
“I have my wife,” he said. “That makes all the difference.”
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