Case closed.
For the past six years, Jeff Mauro has been on the hunt to track down four framed jerseys that went missing since his Pork & Mindy’s sandwich shops were shuttered in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing in 2019.
Mauro posted on Reddit in September looking for leads, hoping someone knew something about the jerseys’ whereabouts — and offered to “shower” whoever helped solve the case of the missing jerseys in meat and giardiniera from his Mauro Provisions product line.
In September he told the Sun-Times, “Someone’s gotta have them. They’re unique enough to stand out, either they’re in a vintage shop, or framed on someone’s walls.”
Jeff Mauro, the former executive chef at Pork & Mindy’s, was on a mission to find four jerseys that used to be at the Wicker Park restaurant. It took six years, but he recovered them.
Sure enough, someone did have them. Mauro said a lawyer involved with the company that was reselling assets from the Pork & Mindy’s bankruptcy called him this month to say he had the jerseys. For six years, they’ve been leaning against a wall in a conference room used for storage.
The lawyer, who wished to stay anonymous, hadn’t heard of Mauro, but his receptionist was a fan of the Food Network star. After she spotted the jerseys in the little-used conference room, she put two and two together, prompting the lawyer to call Mauro.
“I guess no one uses that room,” Mauro said with a laugh.
The jerseys have special meaning for him. He earned them after throwing the ceremonial first pitch at White Sox and Cubs games and shooting the puck during a Blackhawks game in 2015.
“These were special moments. My family was there, my son,” to whom he wanted to gift the jerseys, he said.
After picking up the jerseys on Friday, he said he was overcome by “a flood of emotions.”
“This whole thing has brought up this failed venture for me … the dissolution of Pork & Mindy’s and how that went down,” Mauro said. “I’m so glad to get these back. It puts things into perspective. It’s not something I run away from anymore, and it’s part of my story.”
One of the jerseys says Pork & Mindy’s, which he said he plans to store and replace with his newly acquired Chicago Fire jersey.
“I learned a lot from [Pork & Mindy’s shutting down],” Mauro said, adding “when [I] put my stuff out there, like I’ve done with Mauro Provisions, [every decision I make is] gonna be something I 100% believe in. It’s a true representation of me, my food perspective, and my family name. So, let’s go. This is a new era. The chapter is closed.”
And yes, as he promised in his Reddit post, he did shower the lawyer and his office with boxes of giardiniera, Italian beef, sausage and peppers.
“It was definitely worth it,” he said.
