“I DIDN’T DECLARE I was opening a restaurant until four years ago,” Goodness Gracious Kitchen & Cupboard owner Tobi Mares says. “I looked at spaces, but it was hard for me to say what I was doing. I was scared I didn’t have what it takes to run a restaurant. I couldn’t have any self-doubt.”
Mares was well aware of how challenging the business is: She worked as a restaurant server throughout college, eventually attaining a master’s degree in life coaching. When a close friend passed away, she found her calling as a death doula, working to support people as they reach the end of their life. “It’s just as important how you exit this world as how you enter it,” Mares says. “I provided that missing piece between hospice and the end.”
Along the way, she bought the URL for Goodness Gracious, launching a curated picnic basket business in 2018. “I overlapped my work in hospitality and with my clients for several years,” Mares says. She made a full leap to restaurant ownership in 2024, opening her business in a vibrant pink building on Carmel’s bustling Rangeline Road.
It quickly became an area fixture, serving Midwest favorites like a fried bologna sandwich or an open-faced turkey and gravy for breakfast, lunch, and brunch in a dining room decked out in bow-patterned wallpaper and studded with vintage finds. It’s a mix of old and new that reflects Mares’ eclectic experiences.
Even now, she mixes her old life with her new. Customers still ask for end-of-life care advice, so, “I’ll sit and give them my takeaways,” she says. “I’m still weirdly doing the work.”
