Community Healthcare System won national recognition for how it lets employees schedule their shifts.
The health care system, with hospitals in Munster, Hobart, Crown Point and East Chicago, won the 2022 Aspire Innovation Award from Ultimate Kronos Group. The human resource, payroll and workforce management solutions provider honored Community Healthcare System for its used of Dimensions employee self-scheduling technology, which UKG says "allows workers to select their preferred shifts — leading to greater autonomy, satisfaction and overall employee engagement."
Ultimate Kronos Group honors the accomplishments of employers that try to create good working conditions for their employees.
“Championing great workplaces and helping to create purposeful work through the use of innovative technology are central to who we are,” said UKG CEO Chris Todd. “Our purpose is to create meaningful experiences for organizations and their people, and we are proud of, and humbled by, the outstanding results UKG technology delivers every day to our award winners and all our customers.”
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Community Healthcare System uses the system at Community Hospital in Munster, St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago and Community Stroke & Rehabilitation Center in Crown Point.
“We are honored to receive this award,” said Kristle Ondo, director of finance at Community Foundation of Northwest Indiana. “Our Workforce Optimization team does an outstanding job of using innovative technology to keep our system running efficiently so that we can better care for our patients.”
NWI Business Ins and Outs: Half Baked Cookie Co., Rosina's Meatball Cafe and Lash Lounge opening
Coming soon
Half Baked Cookie Co. is cooking up something sweet in downtown Crown Point.
The bakery is coming soon to 3 N. Court St. in the building that houses the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office on the historic Old Lake County Courthouse square. It specializes in gourmet cookies, classic cookies, deep dish cookies, Fattie cookies and stuffed Fattie cookies. People can satisfy their sweet tooth with gourmet cookies stuffed with Twinkies, cupcakes, caramel popcorn and other goodies.
Coming soon
It has its roots in the COVID-19 pandemic, which hurt owner Gertrude Navikas's cleaning business, costing her staff and clients. So she started creating do-it-yourself cookie kits that let people bake their own sugar cookies with icing, sprinkles and decorations at home.
Her new business venture took off overnight.
Coming soon
"I lost a lot of accounts and so I had to make money," she said. "It was crazy, just nuts. It was busy, busy, busy."
Coming soon
Navikas started baking cookie boxes, cakes, cupcakes, cake pops and many different treats, including gluten-free and keto-friendly sweets. She came up with the Fattie: a huge cookie standing a few inches tall and stuffed with brownies and other goodies.
"The Fatties are very tall: about four and a half inches and six ounces," she said. "I decorate them with toppings like Nutella and Toblerone, Oreos, apples and all kinds of stuff. I just started to make the cookies fatter and then tried different things."
Coming soon
Half Baked Cookie Co. outgrew being just a home bakery that did deliveries across southern Lake County. Navikas started looking for a brick-and-mortar shop and found one in downtown Crown Point. It will be a full-service bakery with poppyseed rolls, crullers, cinnamon rolls, muffins and other baked goods.
"I have a European background and was taught to bake and cook traditional European baked goods," she said. "It's a full-blown bakery. We'll have cannolis and cakes of all kinds: cakes for parties, wedding cakes."
Coming soon
In recent months, cookie shops have been opening up across Northwest Indiana, including Crumbl and Twisted Sugar.
"It's a big thing right now," she said. "But it's like Burger King and McDonald's. They all have different things. This will be something you've never had or seen before."
Coming soon
Half Baked Cookie Co. will display many photos of her mom baking, her family and customers who sent pictures of themselves decorating cookies made from her kits. It will open early to cater to the breakfast crowd and stay open late to serve bar-goers seeking a late-night snack.
Coming soon
It will have many varieties of cookies, keeping popular ones available year-round and rotating through seasonal flavors such as Christmas cookies or Halloween cookies stuffed with marshmallows and green slime. It will heat cookies upon request, sell pizza boxes full of cookies and offer catering, party trays, party boxes, cocoa bombs, cookie kits and cake kits.
Coming soon
Half Baked Cookie Co. will sell coffee and have indoor seating where people can savor their sweets.
"I just did my first market in Crown Point, the Hocus Pocus, and we sold out," she said. "It was crazy, a nonstop line."
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Half Baked Cookie Co. will continue to operate its online business, selling cookie kits and sweet treats online.
Coming soon
"I cater to every lifestyle," she said. "I also do keto, low carb, gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy free and vegan."
Coming soon
For more information, visit halfbakedcookiecoin.com, call 219-310-7957 or email thehalfbakedcookie@yahoo.com.
Coming soon
Rosina's Meatball Cafe will soon start serving up old family recipes in downtown Griffith.
Dawn Ayers-Jania and her husband Geoff Jania will make batches of meatballs fresh daily, using recipes passed down from her great-grandmother Rosina, who hailed from the Italian region of Calabria and settled in New York. Customers will be able to get meatball subs or build-your-own meatball bowls with their choice of penne pasta, rice or white cheddar mashed potatoes.
People will have the choice of meatballs made from traditional beef, spicy Italian sausage, a combination of beef and spicy Italian sausage or gluten-free chicken. It also will have mushroom-and-rice meatballs as a vegetarian option.
"It won't have marinara. It will have red gravy as they say," she said. "We'll have penne because it holds the sauce inside. We'll also have sandwiches salads and soups."
Rosina's Meatball Cafe hopes to open by the end of November, but Ayers-Jania said that's not set in stone yet and it may not be until mid-December. It will be located at 126 N. Griffith Boulevard, across the street from Bridge's Scoreboard and two doors down from the new SereDIPity ice cream parlor.
"It will be a small cafe that's quick-serve," she said. "There won't be any servers. Everything will be made fresh daily."
Coming soon
Rosina's Meatball Cafe will be open until it sells out of that day's batch of meatballs.
It will seat 18 to 20 customers inside and likely have outdoor seating out back in the summer. Ayers-Jania said she liked downtown Griffith, which reminded her of her native Southwest Michigan.
"I actually come from Michigan and have been adjusting to big city life," she said. "I liked the downtown district of Griffith. It reminded me of a downtown district of the towns I lived in. It has that homey, small-town feel. I like what Griffith offers its residents, all the activities and festivals."
She believes Rosina's Meatball Cafe can be a destination.
"There's nothing like this in Northwest Indiana," she said. "Nobody else out there is doing what we're doing with quality ingredients and homestyle food from old Italy. It's a niche market but I believe because of the uniqueness of it, it will draft people."
She's focused on building up a customer base in Griffith.
"Obviously, we're opening a restaurant in a climate when many restaurants are shutting their doors," she said. "The first thing will be to make a presence and get customers to return, to survive and thrive. I'm focused on the first five years, because they say if you don't find success in the first five years, you're not going to."
Friends and family have long encouraged her to open a restaurant, heaping praise on her cooking.
"Everyone has always said, 'oh my God, these meatballs are amazing and delicious'," she said. "I've gotten a lot of positive feedback."
Coming soon
In addition to meatballs, the restaurant will have paninis, Italian subs, grilled cheese and salads like a house, Ceasar and Caprese. It will have soups like Stuffed Pepper, Italian Wedding and Spicy Italian Sausage Cheesy Potato.
She hopes the restaurant will celebrate the memory of her great-grandmother, after whom it's named.
"It felt like the right way to honor her," Ayers-Jania said. "She never left New York. She went and looked at soda fountains as locations to open a cafe but never found the right fit."
Rosina was a remarkable woman, Ayers-Jania said.
"She had a hard time learning English so forbade her husband from speaking Italian," she said. "She wanted her children to be Americans and sound like Americans. She was a family-oriented woman who never worked outside the home. She loved her family. I never got to meet her. According to my mom, she had a big loud Italian laugh. She knew how to cook. I've been cooking her recipes my whole life. This is super-exciting for me."
For more information, find Rosina's Meatball Cafe on Facebook.
Open
The Lash Lounge opened at 858 N Superior Drive in the booming Beacon Hill development in Crown Point.
Dana and Jay Dieckmann opened the franchise at 107th and Broadway, next to Orange Theory and Smoothie King. It's an upscale salon that employs six people and just celebrated its grand opening Monday.
It offers lash extensions and lash and brow services, including tinting, threading and lifts.
Open
"It's a woman-run business and an honest company that helps women," Dana Dieckmann said.
It's a franchise based out of Texas with 120 locations across the country, including one in Chicago and another in Fishers. Dieckmann is looking to open another franchise, possibly in South Bend or Valparaiso.
"We liked this location. It's up-and-coming with a lot of traffic," she said. "They're building the hospital, that McDonald's and I guess a lot of neighborhoods in the area."
Open
The 1,430-square-foot salon is open for walk-ins but reservations are strongly encouraged. It employs licensed cosmetologists and technicians and eventually hopes to fill all 10 of its chairs.
People can sign up for memberships to save on appointments.
Open
"Come in and take a couple of extra minutes to not have to do makeup and wake up feeling gorgeous," she said.
The Lash Lounge is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 219-356-6544 or find the business on Facebook or Instagram.
If you would like your business to be included in a future column, email joseph.pete@nwi.com.
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Joseph S. Pete
Business Reporter
Joseph S. Pete is a Lisagor Award-winning business reporter who covers steel, industry, unions, the ports, retail, banking and more. The Indiana University grad has been with The Times since 2013 and blogs about craft beer, culture and the military.
