If you drive south down Lathrop in Forest Park, from Lake Street to Washington, you will pass a quaint, old house on the left. The building has been the site of several beloved restaurants – comfortable places, inviting places, the kind of places you could go with friends and linger over coffee and breakfast. You may remember them: The Blue Max, Lathrop House, places that have closed but still live on in memories.
Originally built as a residential home, the property became a commercial space in the 1990s with an expanded enclosed porch for dining.
Since July 2024, the house has yet again another life: a new restaurant has opened in that building – Bizzy Bees. Described as a Mexican restaurant, the menu reveals it is much more eclectic than your average Mexican place. Yes, burrito and chorizo and egg, but also loaded avocado toast. And the vibe of the place retains the same feel as the places that occupied it before: inviting and comfortable.
The woman behind Bizzy Bees is Forest Park chef and entrepreneur Selena Villarreal. She has been in the restaurant business for eight years, but her passion for cooking is lifelong. Villarreal grew up in Galesburg, Illinois, where she lived with her abuela.
“I was raised in the kitchen side by side with her. We made a lot of Mexican dishes. Tamales, enchiladas,” she recalled. But she was not just limited to Mexican dishes. When asked to list her top three foods she made with her grandmother. Villarreal said without hesitation: “Tamales, enchiladas and Puerto Rican rice.”
Villarreal moved to Cicero from Galesburg when she was 15 after her grandmother died. She went to Morton West High School. “It took me a long time to get used to everything around here,” she said. “Chicago is a very busy city, and I came from the country. I was out in the farmland.”
Villarreal added that growing up in the country taught her things she uses every day in her kitchen: “You learn a lot about the crops and quality; you learn about how things grow and when is the best time for picking.”
This knowledge carries over directly to her business. “I know that it’s really important to have a fresh product. Everything’s made from scratch. The chips are made from scratch. The salsa is made from scratch. I put in a lot of work with that dish, in particular with our rice and our beans and the setup and the presentation on the plate. So that makes it special.”
Villarreal’s eclectic menu reflects her multicultural roots: “I’m actually mixed. My family is Hispanic. My mother’s side is Hispanic [Mexican and Spanish] and my father’s side, he’s Puerto Rican and Italian,” she said.
Villarreal didn’t always want to be a restaurateur. In high school she had other career ideas. “I was enrolled in the Air Force. I took my ASVAB [The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a standardized test that helps determine a person’s aptitude for military careers].” Villarreal decided not to go into the Air Force and for a while she thought she wanted to be a truck driver.
“I went to classes for my CDL [commercial driver’s license]. I actually ended up just getting scared. Honestly, I was scared. It was overwhelming. I really give it to all the truck drivers. I really give a lot of respect to them, because that’s a hard job.”
Villarreal’s plans changed when she started a family “at the young age of 20 I had my first child.” She found work in a factory and for 10 years she worked as a forklift driver. But eventually she decided she wanted more than just a job to pay her bills, she wanted to be doing something she loved – and that was cooking.
So she moved on to restaurants. She took a part time job with Panda Express, and quickly discovered restaurants were her passion. She moved on to line cook in a larger chain restaurant – “prepping and recipes” – and something clicked.
During COVID Villarreal started catering out of her kitchen as a side hustle. She called her business Selena’s Cooking. She was still working full time in a restaurant at the time, but the catering business took off. She was thinking of building her business when she stumbled across the space on Lathrop. She had just been looking for a new apartment for herself and her children, but the first-floor restaurant opened her eyes to new possibilities. .
“Long story short,” she said. “I saw this ad for this location, and I reached out to the owner. We have a whole package here. So we live upstairs. And we operate the restaurant.” She also operates her catering business out of the Lathrop restaurant.
Villarreal took the same name for both her catering company and her place: Bizzy Bees/ “I feel that bees are very strong and they’re constantly doing things.” Like Villarreal.
The restaurant portion of her business opened in July 2024 and has been steadily growing since. Bizzy Bees is very much a family business. Villarreal runs to the kitchen, her daughters run the front of the house. “We have one cook from out of the family, but it’s pretty much all run by the family.”
These days Villarreal works very hard, juggling her restaurant and catering business, and still working a part time job for another restaurant. But she has found her passion.
She said: “It’s beautiful. I like to deliver to people. I like people to feel happy. I don’t have fancy, like real fancy, plates, but I like people to come and enjoy good food. It’s a good life. I’m very happy with the space that we have. I just feel like it has so much potential. I just want to see it filled with people, you know. I love to see that people are enjoying the environment, the atmosphere, enjoying your company in a nice place.”
