Please introduce yourself
Hi, my name is Orville Diaz and I am one of the managers here at Miki’s Park.
How long have you and your family lived in the Chicago area?
The owner’s father moved to Chicago around 50 years ago and has been in the business ever since. I personally am born and raised in Chicago.
How has being a part of the AAPI community impacted your career as a restaurateur?
Our visibility in the Asian community has steadily increased since joining AAPI Restaurant Week. We’ve met and maintained wonderful relationships and it is nice to see the AAPI community continue to evolve and thrive in the industry.
How do you envision your relationship with customers, both those who are a part of the AAPI community and those who are not?
Our relationship with guests goes beyond race. We are happy every time someone chooses Miki’s Park to spend their time in our space. We just want to represent and share Asian culture in this restaurant and nightlife space.
What are some future goals you wish to achieve for your restaurant?
Due to opening right before covid shutdown, it put us behind. So we’re just hoping to serve more guests, new guests, our regular guests and all guests to the Miki’s Park experience. In addition, we also wish to showcase Asian and Korean culture and community.
What is your restaurant’s signature dish?
Our signature dishes are the KFC sandwich, which is the Korean fried chicken sandwich, and the Miki’s Bap, which is our take on a Korean Bibimbap bowl. These are ordered the most because they are just delicious.
What dish would you recommend to new customers
The Chicken Sandwich is one of my favorites. The Seoul Sliders is our take on bar sliders with a bit of Korean flavors.
Where did you get inspiration for the bar:
We want to give Miki’s a couple of feels: the bar is modeled off of an old school Chicago bar. As an Asian American person growing up in the city, I understand the typical feel of the Chicago bars and nightclubs. The rest of it is all pieced together: part of it is based on my experience when I went to Seoul to see my cousin. I took inspiration from a bar I visited with him and the neon lights of the streets of Seoul.
It’s nice that we have Miki’s, which has the classic atmosphere of a Chicago-style bar but with a little bit of the Asian flare you don’t get to see that often. I think it’s cool to have for both the Asian community and people who are non-asian to experience and embrace more of what you don’t have.