From Rock Bottom To Empire: Overcoming Burnout, Mental Health Battles, & Turning Set Backs Into Success Ft. Kevin Boehm

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Bostics. Today we have Kevin Bame on the show, he is a James Beard award-winning restaurant tour, has spent the past three decades opening more than 50 restaurants and building Boca restaurant group into one of the most celebrated hospitality companies in the country. Along his partner Rob Caz, he has launched over 40 acclaimed concepts, earning Michelin

stars and numerous national awards, in 2019, the duo received the James Beard Award for outstanding restaurant tours, and for those in Chicago, Bame is also the co-founder of BN. I hope I said that right, Kevin, a 40,000 square foot, one of a kind private club in Chicago rooted in wellness and community showed us some renderings and some videos, it's a picture

of the place that's incredible when I go to Chicago, I have to get there, and he's also recently

debuted his memoir, The Bottomless Cup, which was named one of Bloomberg's best books of the year, and became a best seller. We had an incredible time talking to Kevin, he was one of the nicest guests we were had on the show, some of the themes include the gift of rock bottom, reframing success, personal transformation, how to think about the world in an unconventional way, how to avoid burnout,

what it looks like when you're burning it at both ends of the candle and trying to survive, this is really a story of somebody who's hustled their way to the top, his built and incredible brand, had a lot of tenacity, a lot of grit, and his done some really smart things along the way. He's also got some incredible stories.

“With that, I think this audience is going to love this episode with Kevin, Kevin, welcome”

to The Bostics. Kevin Bame is on the show, so I was served your book, and I told you I was hooked from page one, and then I needed to put faces to all the characters, and so I went to your

page and tagged you on Instagram, the book was so compelling, it was so good that I had to

have you on the show. So welcome. Thank you. Welcome. That's so nice.

I have a personal, there was a relatability to me in your book because I grew up in a restaurant, like I remember being a tiny little girl and my dad dealing with produce during the day. See your dad was batshit crazy, just like me. You guys love intensity.

You love intensity. I do. Well, I loved manic moments, and so I was this bipolar kid who didn't know the difference between happy moments and manic moments, and when I opened up a restaurant, and it was so

exciting, and the chaos made me forget everything else in my life.

I was like, this is happiness. I just need to keep doing this over and over and over again, and that was the prescription for a while. We were talking about this before we sat down with you and like, do you think that that

“business attracts personalities, like there's anything you have to have, that kind of”

personalities that sustain for as long as you have? Well, if you don't have a ton of energy, you're not going to be able to do very well. And I think the people who've had pain in their life had gone through stuff, look at restaurant pain and kind of laugh at it a little bit, so they're like, oh, a 20-plate pick up, or I just got set for tables at the same time, I'm like, who cares?

So I liked it and thrived in it. It was like going through a rush inside of a restaurant to me was like a version of cutting yourself. I wanted to feel that pain and get lost in it, and it was almost like I was going to crash the plane and right before a crash, I pulled the nose up, and I'd get this huge high

for a minute. It's like a rush. I relate to what you're saying. I do this in my personal life with, like, I press it on time. I want to crash the plane and get right there, but then I come to it.

But you don't crash it. I want to get that right to the edge. He is the exact opposite of that. Do you think that it could match? Yeah.

We talked about that a lot. I don't think we could, I think, two of the same kind of people like that, that could be a mess. I think so. Oh, for sure. That's where you go down, like, you know, suspicious and Nancy.

Yeah. We'll go back direction. Yeah. I mean, for me, yeah. I would get to the end of the night then, and it was like in your all amped up, and

you're like, could I please get seven margaritas? You know, and so you put out that fire without a call, and then I would go to bed and I would do it over again. And one of the signs of being bipolar is that you don't need a lot of sleep. And so I would, I would then go to bed, I'd sleep for a few hours, I'd get up, and I would

chase the anxiety again. I'd like how fast can I get back to service, so I can feel better again. So what was your childhood like were you, were you wired like this from an early age? So I knew from a pretty early age that my father hated me. You know, you pick up on social cues that someone doesn't like you very much, and in

my little tiny house, and he was a yeller and a screamer, and I was just like, okay, this man does not like me for some reason. And so I was chasing being like to my own house. And so from an early age, when you're not like to inside your own house, you think that

“the only way that you're going to be liked or loved in life is by invention.”

And so I started thinking about who I could invent to be likable or lovable, and it seemed

guy was pretty popular, and so I created this kind of restaurant to a version of myself. But as a young kid, I struggled with just likability and the fear of criticism of others,

and so I was kind of always chasing that.

Well, was it like having a father who you felt didn't like you with your mom dynamic? Because I can imagine as a little boy seeing that with your mother was difficult. Yeah, my mom was my protector, and even if you look at a lot of pictures of us as a kid, my father's never standing close to me or has his hands on me or anything like that. And of course, you know, very early in the book, I say, in the summer of 1989, halfway

through a Western Omelette, a cup of coffee, I found out that I wasn't really Kevin Bam. And so at 18 years old, I figured out why he didn't like me. And that was because I was the product of an affair, and I wasn't his son and he knew it. Was the product that reminded her for him?

He looked at me and he saw what he valentine, who was my father. When what he asks you to go out to eat at the diner, did you think it was weird or did you know he was going to tell you something profound like he was your father? Yeah, I mean, I was trying to be polite, and I had met him a couple times.

“And the only thing I really knew about him was that he was an ex-professional boxer, and”

that my mom had maybe worked for him for a little while, and so I was like, yeah, whatever. I mean, I was also a poor kid and he was like, hey, why don't I take you for a round of golf afterwards?

And I was like, cool, I'd never played golf before.

So I was a little uncomfortable with it, but I was like, yeah, with the hell. So when he tells you that information, how did you go back to your other father who thought was your father? I thought was your father. So I went straight from him telling me that to my childhood playground, because I

knew that my dad was home for lunch, and I didn't want to face him. And it was the first time ever in my life that I had empathy for him. So you start thinking about all the things that had happened in your life, and you were like, holy shit, laundry night. I instantly thought my mom would get all dolled up every Sunday night, make up the whole

thing, 60 minutes of BNTV, and she refused to get us a washer and dryer, because she went on a date with Woody every Sunday night, and I'm sitting on that playground, and reminding all the things of my life, and I'm like, okay, now I understand why he hated me. Oh my god, mom has been carrying on this affair for all these years, because when he was sitting there talking, he was talking about how much he loved my mom.

And so a lot of things were making sense, but I was afraid to face anybody.

“And I just remember that it was three days later, I left to go to college, and I was”

nowhere to be found, because I didn't want to be home. I didn't want to kind of look at my mom. Did your mom know that he knew she was having an affair? Um, okay. Too bad.

So this, this, no, this, I've sorted out some of this mystery, and some of it I have not. And some of it has been sorted out, while I've been on book tour, because when you write a personal book like this, it no longer is just your own anymore, and like this is unplugging some of the holes of the story.

And so I've gotten calls from Woody's side of the family and other people, I had never

even heard nor had my mom that my dad had admitted or said to anyone that I wasn't as child. My mom and him never had a conversation about it. And then my banker at a book event came up and said, 10 years ago, your dad said to me, no Kevin's not really my son.

Your dad that you grew up with in your home. Yes. I'm not saying it to other people. Larry, but, but him and your mother could never like face that truth together, correct? It sounds like your dad that you grew up with loved your mother so much that he didn't

want to rock the boat. And he knew if he rocked the boat, she would leave. Lauren, you're nailing it. I hope that's why I do it for all of you, and it's starting to be the bartender. He's here.

You want to do it? Yeah. Yeah. He's getting heavy, very quickly. He's not done up yet.

Do you have a bar back there? No. So did it feel like I guess maybe for your dad who wasn't your dad that he was trapped in a way, because he didn't want to rock the boat and you want to stay with your mother. But if he knew if he did that too much, she would leave and go with Woody.

Yeah.

“I think my mom was the best thing, and maybe only one of the few things in his entire life”

that made him feel good. And his big problem was as very early out of the marriage, he tried to control it. You know, he kind of weaponized the Bible, and on the master of the house, and a back fired out of him. And then when he lost her, he was going to do anything he could to keep her, including

not saying anything about my paternity. Did your mom love him? My mom felt sorry for Larry, and she said to me very late in life, like, I should not have married Larry. Larry could have found a woman who would have loved him.

And I think that they both, I think that she felt bad for about the situation.

you have forgiven Woody, your dad, Larry, and your mom.

I'd always forgiven my mom.

I never held anything against my mom. I carried a terrible grudge against Larry for a long time, and, you know, there are three pillars in life that I live by now.

“And it's, do I wake up with purpose every single morning?”

And is my reasoning behind that purpose in Noble One? It's not revenge, and it's not ego. It was revenge for a long time. I wanted to just succeed because Larry told me again, and again, what a bum I was going to be.

Two, do I run into the people that I like love and respect while I'm doing that purpose? And then three, if I was watching the movie of my own life, could I do an edit of it that was unedited? You know, what I'd be rooting for myself is the protagonist of what I'd be okay, showing an unedited, got to everybody.

And if those three things are in line, then I'm in line. The first part of that, the right reason behind the purpose, for a long time, I was on a revenge tour against Larry, and that's incredibly unhealthy. Have you let that go now? I don't know.

In your book, you do feel bad for him, like I felt bad as a reader. Do you think you could have had the tremendous success you've had without that motivation, though?

Because I always, when we talk to people, it's like, there's always the thing that's like

the chip on the shoulder that's pushing, and the question is, like, could you have gotten, where you've gotten to, without that, probably not, you know, blind ambition does not do much for human development. And in the last five years, I've done great work as in my own human development, and I'm probably made me not as good of a restaurant tour, but I've now found this intersection

where I can both develop a zoom in being and do soulful projects and figure out where my skill set goes, and be a great father, but yeah, for a long time, it was super unhealthy.

“You were homeless at one point, what did you talk about?”

What did it look like going from homeless to getting that first restaurant open? Well, I make a joke in the book, I say the first time you live in your car, you think this is going to make a really good book someday. The second time you live in your car, you think it's probably not going to be a book. So, fortunately, I lived in my car once, what happened was I, you know, sometimes I would

get uncomfortable sleeping in my Suzuki Samurai, and so I pulled a sleeping bag out one night, and I was sleeping under a tree on the beach, and I heard a mom say, "Kids, get away from there." And I looked up to figure out what was so scary, and it was me that she thought that was scary, and I just, I had to talk with myself, and I was like, "Kid, you got to get

it together." And I wrote this really beautiful piece of fiction that was my first resume that had all these restaurants on there that had all mysteriously gone out of business, so they couldn't go for a reference check, and I went to the most finding restaurant in town, and I interviewed with this guy, and, you know, life's a game of inches sometimes.

The owner of the restaurant was walking by. He asked me a question, I couldn't really answer, and she grabbed by the face, and she said, "I like this one, my car, this one." And he goes, "I guess you got the job, kid."

“And I think it was just the universe looking out for me, and two weeks into being at that”

restaurant, I was like, "This is my home." These are my people. And what I realized about restaurant people, and you've seen this, Lauren, they know a lot about food, they know a lot about wine, they also know a lot about music, and movies, and they're dangerous, and I was like, "Yes!"

Take me on a ride with these folks, and I did, I went on a ride with them, and I figured out, also at the same time, that I was really good at saving money. And so, I was very superstitious, and I would put all my money from one job and an envelope, and I would look at it, and I would seal it, and I cursed myself if I ever opened up a sealed

envelope that I would never open up my first restaurant.

And the other cash, I got from the other job, I would live on, and one day, I had enough money, and I said, "Peace out to everybody." And you opened your own restaurant. I opened up a little tiny restaurant in my girlfriend at the time, Teresa, I'm called the lazy-days cafe, six tables.

That menu sounded so good. I was like, "Fuck, why isn't this open anymore?" That menu sounded so good. It was simple, but in so many great ways. We literally would have fishermen knock on our kitchen door and say, "Hey, I just got some

copia. You want to buy it for me? I was just completely illegal." Yes, we would buy copia off of a guy, and that would be the fish special, and she would make puff pastry, and we would have three different puff pastries every night and do these

on crout dishes. We would have pasta with roasted garlic, tomato, cream sauce, and fresh Gulf shrimp, big garlic when you sat down, do a couple of salads, and that was it. We had one six burner. What are we going to Chicago?

Yeah, no, no, no, I'm hungry.

father, is that you really have to be an octopus. You have to do it all.

“You have to be the handyman, you have to be reading things in, you have to make drinks,”

you have to cook, you have to have good energy, you have to finesse, you have to understand the five senses. You better understand the five senses, you don't understand the five senses, that's not going to work. You have a good personality.

The music, the Miles Davis post music playlist that you had when you said that, like, you got, it's got to be the right volume, you got a personality. What do you think, when someone's in a restaurant and they have all these different skills, how do you think that applies to outside life? Have you been able to use these octopus skills everywhere?

100% well, first of all, I worry for the new generation sometimes, because your ability to be compelling in person and get people to believe in you and all of those things, you got to do reps to do that. And so the touching of tables that I did very early on in restaurants, that imbued all the conversations I had the rest of my life, because I could see which one's impacted.

I was always pulling lovers and I would be like, oh, yeah, say that, that's a good

line. And I've used that my whole life and I lecture every once in a while at my alma mater that I went to for a little while and recently I'd sat six chairs in the front of the room. And I said, hey, six people sit up here and I sat at chair in front of the first person. And I said, hey, what do you have for breakfast this morning?

She goes, why? I sat in front of the second person and I said, would you have for breakfast this morning? And she was like, ah, third person I sat by chair in front of, I said, would you have for breakfast this morning? And she goes, I like to combine my cereals. And I was like, say more.

She's like, well, I throw some corn flakes in there for some crunch and some fruit loops for sweetness.

“And I'm like, you're like a breakfast chef and she's like, I say, you should work for”

Kellogg. I go, guys, she got the job. And so learning these personalities skills were on our phones so much. And you can really think for a long time how you're going to respond to somebody on Instagram. But that doesn't happen in person.

When you say touching tables, what is the trick to approaching someone if someone's listening out of the blue and touching a table? And I mean, you can apply this in any area of your life. You can.

So first of all, if someone's upset, I have a tried and true approach to it.

What's your right? So first of all, server comes over and says, hey, position three, table 42, their allergic to cilantro and they told us and we still serve them cilantro. I'm like, okay, crap. So I'll go to the table and I'll go, hi, Mrs. Smith.

I've heard about what's happened. I've been briefed on it.

“But is there any way that you could tell me in your own words?”

So I make sure that I understand everything. So first of all, it means that I care too when she tells me about it, it's going to de-escalator. So then why she's telling me about it? I act of listen. So she doesn't think that I'm just like, not fully in with her and on her side.

And at the end of it, I apologize and I do some sort of action. I had dinner with the head FBI to go, she had her once I told him that and he's like, you're pretty good at my job because I do basically the same thing. So I was that guy that they would send in when somebody was really ticked off. It sounds like how I deal with my toddler.

Does it de-escalate because they have to voice why they're so angry. They realize it's maybe not worth being that angry about it. Well, think about when you get really angry, it's almost like you're holding your breath. I can't wait to get this out. And then when you talk about it, and you're like, I told the server that we were going to have

and they're breathing while they're talking. And as before you know, with their heart rate's down a little bit, and you're like, how about how about I buy your meal tonight? And how about I give you my card in the next time you come in, I'll start your meal out personally the next time.

And in those early days when I was young and scrappy, and I was so crazy concerned about every table and so paranoid, because I had terrible anxiety that one little misstep people were not going to come back.

And so I was always the guy rolling and saying, God table 22 doesn't look like they're having a good

time. What's happening? I said, "Parenthood about everything." At what point did you recognize that you had bipolar? Um, wow. I remember watching ordinary people when I was young and Timothy Hutton and that movie commits suicide. And this was, you know, read for directed it. It was Mary Tyler Moore as the

overbearing mom. And I was like, "Oh wow. There's maybe I have a little bit of that." Because when you're young, it's a Michael Jordan-like leap to go from thinking, "I get in bad mood sometimes to I have a real problem with depression." And watching him, I was like, "Okay, maybe there's something there." And then when I sold my first two restaurants and I went back to Springfield, Illinois,

I was having real trouble every single morning and I'm like, "Why am I not happy?" I just sold two restaurants. I'm back in my hometown. I get to show Larry what I've done.

she said, "Can I? I think you might be bipolar."

“And I stood up and I said, "I go fuck you, Sharon." And I walked out.”

Because I'd only heard bipolar in the context of someone being critical about someone else.

Like, "Oh, they're bipolar." They're crazy. They're crazy. And I'm like, "I'm not fucking crazy." I'd spent my whole life trying to not be crazy. I'd classified Larry as crazy. And I'm like, "No, no, no, no. I'm not that." And so I walked out. But it was in the back of my head for years then that like, "Okay, there's something wrong with me." But I can fix it. I can fix it. If the Chinese have done it for 5,000 years, I'm going to try it.

I'm going to do float therapy. I'm going to do acupuncture. I'm going to run six miles a day. I can outsmart this. I can outwit it. And I really thought for many years that I could until I couldn't. This episode is brought to you by Zaisal. I am so allergic to cats. The worst. And I use Zaisal allergy 24 hour. Okay. If you're like me, if I like even smell a cat,

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That shotmino.com code Meet Mino15 for 15 percent off. What point did you feel like you couldn't and you needed to make a change? Around 2016 and 2017 I was in real trouble. And I was actually inside the restaurants and I remember being in the restaurant one night and needing to engage in something and is said walking out the door and getting it my car. And like the universe is playing tricks on me. The rich eyes and show was on TV and Kevin Costner was being interviewed by

“rich eyes and I'm driving along with listening and he said hey Kevin who's the best actor you”

have ever worked with and he said Gene Hackman by far. And he goes let me tell you Gene Hackman story. He goes I'm in a huge fight with the director because every scene between me and Hackman were across from each other at the table and I'm like we're not filming it here. I need to move around we're going to film it over here Taylor Hackford's like no we're not he's like yes we are they're screaming at each other and at one point Taylor Hackford goes hey Gene Hackman's in the scene

too maybe we should ask him and Kevin Costner says you know what Gene's pretty freaking good I think I'll figure it out. So they film it over here and at the end of the day, Costner walks out into the lot Gene Hackman's sitting on his car and Costner goes oh crap I've disrespected this guy and he goes he goes to get hammered that's not what happened. Hackman goes you know what the last five years I've been really depressed and I've been getting a divorce

and I've been taking bad movies and I haven't been able to do what you just did today that was the right move keep doing it he got his car and drove off and it landed with me like I got punched right in the face. I was like I I can't do my job anymore and there was it there was a slow climb for me then to really start thinking about my own mental health and unfortunately what got in the way of all that was the day before the pandemic really hit us and they closed all the restaurants

by mom died and that's when I really fell off a cliff and you know a year later I was in this town in Los Angeles standing on a ledge after I'd written for suicide notes and getting ready to jump you talk about this in the book but if you could paraphrase it to the audience what woke you

up out of that my phone rang I woke up that morning and my brain's never been more of a tornado

than it was that morning and you know during COVID there was people had kind of turned their guns a little bit on the restaurant business and there had been this kind of blog hit piece that had come out about us laying some people off but they didn't know the full story it was a it was a management deal that we had left and the hotel was just going to rehire them so they didn't have the full story and I had read that piece and I just couldn't take I just couldn't take the pressure

or the criticism anymore and I'm not a day drinker but I ordered up a bottle of wine and polished off the complimentary bottle of wine in the hotel room and I was like this sit so when you're sad you want to feel even sadder and I put on the saddest song I could think of

and the stop me who was on the phone nobody of any significance just a rampart just the ring

“that stopped the song from playing oh and did that wake you up from what you were doing it”

enforced me because I had literally released my hands and I just stopped for a second and I climbed

back down and then I grabbed a pillow and I fell asleep on the balcony and when I woke up you know when you wake up and you have that 30 second reprieve to where you can't remember what happened when you wake up in a flops wet at a balcony you don't get that 30 second reprieve I woke up and was like oh my god something is seriously wrong with you and you can't outsmart it anymore and then I spent the next hour writing twenty things that I needed to do in my life

if I was going to move forward and rock bottom if you can survive it as a gift give us some other things on that list because there might be people who are listening that are feeling low and that might inspire them yeah well the number one thing on the list was get a therapist

“right away and you need to talk to that therapist five days a week and I did I got a therapist”

right away and I said I really need you every day right now and what I figured out real quickly is if you're doing it right you're really should be through therapists is like no relationship you're going to have in your life because they're not there to like you they're there to help you

and so for the first time in my life I wasn't pretending to be anybody it was my authentic self

and I just said here's who I am and I need your help and I just happen to have the best therapist ever who's still with me you know so that relationship and Elena you know she really she really helped save my life for the first time ever here's my authentic self here's everything that's happening that I'm thinking that I'm feeling that was the obvious first step and I and she helped me get medicated and the medication when it really kicked in that's probably

the biggest regret of my life because it got rid of the irrational anxiety and I was just like God damn it Kevin you could have done this a long time ago so it felt like there was a foot on your neck and then that removed it and it immediately gave you relief I was super happy and then I was like Kevin you son of a bitch what an idiot you all the low hanging fruit and so if you haven't done the low hanging fruit if you haven't talked to a psychiatrist you haven't talked to a therapist

do that and then I went to both my companies and I said guys I'm not going to be around for a

“little while I need time away and I remember the next day like eight people called me from both”

companies and I was like I don't think you I don't think you guys understand I'm being serious I need you to leave me alone. Well they had to well they just not used to that version of you

because I was constantly always on like 24/7. Imagine if you're and also if you're bipolar

you might say something and they're like I'll help you different tomorrow. Yeah yeah they're like I'll just see he's going to be fine. Hey I just want to talk it I was like no no leave me alone and they were like oh oh this is real then they left me alone and how long did they leave you alone for? Um it was really about six weeks where I didn't walk a dining room go into a restaurant and I really just concentrated on my own health on my wind did i wasca and um that's the hardest 10

hours of my life. Why? Ten years at therapy and ten hours? Is it really that? Oh my god it's anything that you've put into your subconscious that's trauma, shame, guilt, pain you basically sit in it for 10 hours. So all these things you've tried really hard not to think about you are transported there. I most of the time I didn't know that I was in the room I was back in those places and it you know it's it's been incredibly effective with soldiers who had PTSD

and but it's really effective with anybody who has a lot of stuff stored up in that subconscious. Would you do it again because sometimes I hear people are like I need to do it every year or like it's one enough. It's a great question. I sure don't want to do it again. It's awful. It's not like an individual work. No it's it's work you know and so everybody that was a first timer that was doing it there with me you know I was literally hugging the guy next to me. My biggest mistake was

that I didn't take a loved one with me and someone that I could count on and trust. I was looking for something and someone to hold on to besides the shaman. In the middle of it I went to the shaman and I was like could you please make this stop and he goes Kevin you came to sit here in the sadness go back and sit in the sadness. I was like I sat in the sadness for for 10 hours and then three

it all out or you're able to just face it and look at it differently or there was a couple things that I had repressed you're like of course that happened of course that happened and I was able to deal with it and because I had Elena I could sit with and talk to her about it and so that was super important all that work that I was going on and doing at that time and then not having to worry about work for a little while stopping drinking. The big problem with drinking was

I was fairly disciplined about it. I would drink like one day a week but that one day a week I would have like 12 drinks and then for three days afterwards I would I would have suicidal ideation and so I ties spoke to a friend of mine and I'm like well I'm not an alcoholic you know I only drink like one day a week and he goes what happens and I go well I feel like I want to kill myself afterwards he goes well how long has happened going on. Said 10 years he goes Kevin you can call it

whatever you want to call it and so I went cold turkey and drinking. It's so you weren't drinking like a lot of people in the restaurant industry the way they drink because I used to do it when I was a girl is you go in the back in the closet and you take a couple of steps of wine and you do it all throughout your shift and you don't get too drunk because you're serving people but you're all

it's like almost like a slow drip that's not the way you were never did that. So in my 20s it was

always after service. So I'm sure that answers. I'm sure that's been there but what I would do is I was in the closet too. That was in the closet. That was a problem. I would get done with a shift and it would be like 10 to 10 30 and that's when the place would kind of shift to a party and I would go up there to quote Johnny Depp in order my mega pint of cabernet and I would get an 11 ounce cabernet. The biggest cup ever just a giant tub of cabernet and yeah it was kind of like red wine

and tequila for me and then I would drink kind of the rest of the night post service and then when I got to my 30s it was a moderated version of that but the time I got to my 40s it was only on the weekends and then by my like mid to late 40s it was like only unsaturated in it. You had a discipline around it but it's still was problematic. It's exactly right. So right now are you still sober? I'm still sober. I drink a lot of caffeine.

“I have the best by the way this is just random tangent, mocktail ever. You have to try this.”

Okay peak tea. Use code skinny but actually you you already got me because I get so upset when people don't have tea. It's not a tea really. Is there a caffeine in it? I don't know if there's no it's a nightcap. Okay got it. It's called Vesper. It tastes like an opera for it. Yes, yes, yes. And I put my my pelligrino on top of it, squeeze a lemon in it. You could also do an orange and a bunch of ice and it tastes like I'm drinking a fucking opera all spits every night.

We have a lot of friends that were in the nightlife and restaurant business and he was explaining to me and he recently cut out call code Turkey and you know needed to. But he was in that in your world for 50 years. He had his first nightclub when he was 19 years old and then just kept going and he's like he the way he described me is like he's like you know how you came into our spots, you know like dinner and you're going to club and have drinks and all that.

It's like you do that like in the weekend. I'm like yeah he goes, well I never left.

“That's why I need to like make some changes because we go as patrons and we enjoy and then we”

leave and go back to our life. But people like yourself that are just living it and then he was expected to be the guy like you walk in and you would see him and people want to buy drinks with them and hang out with them and do the thing and they get some point. It just overwhelms and catches up. It does. I drink a weird amount of ice tea now and I get I get very angry with people don't have ice tea or or I'll just want to make green tea and put it over ice. I would have had

that for you ready to go. How do I know that? And I try and you come on the show. I will have that. And I just dust the room with a little bit of cocaine. Okay. All right. All right. It's like a hot frame of cocaine. How far out is he? He's like, oh, he's like, oh, he's like, oh, he's like, you want to get out the cocaine? He's like, I mean, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's a joke. Guys, the deer media cocaine is amazing. You know, I heard radio shrugs work.

“Nothing compared. Exactly. I think one thing that people don't understand is how difficult”

the restaurant business is on a relationship. I saw it firsthand. My mother and my father worked in the business. My mom was the details person. My dad was the visionary, the big picture, a little harder to control, a little more ADHD and my mom was sort of like the organizer.

your book, you kind of touch on your marriage where you were saying like, it's really almost hard

“to make time for a marriage because you're managing the whole restaurant and you have to rush home.”

You talked about putting your baby on your chest and like really savoring those moments. Well, was that like? Well, I mean, a lot of times Courtney's Max wife would get the worst of me, you know, because I would expend all that energy on other people and then I would drop the facade. I was like a method actor and I would come home and I would turn back into myself again. So, I mean, I think it was, I think it was hard on all of us. You know, I think one of Courtney's

quotes one time was like, you're never boring, but you're also no picnic. And I think that was

absolutely the truth. So, you know, yeah, really hard on relationships my whole life. You know, my girlfriend now on you know, gets a much better version of me because she gets, she gets the balanced sober me, which is like so much better of a version. So, I'm glad I'm glad I'm at her at this time, but yeah, really hard on really hard on court. And, you know, I did the best I could. I didn't get raised in a house that was a normal family life or a normal marriage. And so,

I was also learning how to live within a family. And I remember very early on, like, you know, Courtney being like, yeah, we sit down to dinner together. I had never done that growing up. We only sat down for dinner together at the holidays, which is crazy because you were

serving people sitting down to dinner together. And I don't know, serving the right word,

but courting and hosting and having all these people do that in front of you, but it seemed like in the book you almost couldn't do it for yourself. Correct. I was spending for myself, you know, part of the independence that I got and the reason that I could drop out of college and drive down a floor to my self is because I'd been kind of independent for a long time. I'd kind of felt like I'd been independent since I was 12 years old. Was the divorce that you had,

“because you didn't speak about this in the book? Was that after all of this happened with Ayahuasca?”

Yeah, this was after. This was after, you know, and sometimes, like, I think the way I said in the book, you know, Dave Mason's got a song, you know, they're ain't no good guy, they're ain't no bad guy, they're only you and me and we just disagree. And, you know, we just got into a point where much different people than when we met, she was very young when we met. She was, you know, what were you like, 21 and 31 or 22 and 32 when we met. And so we had just become different people

and she's an incredible mom. We have three kids together. We co-parent well. I've got a,

I've got a 20 almost 22 year old daughter at that pepper dying. She's so cute. I saw her on your Instagram. You're in trouble, man. Oh, I don't know. Oh, I don't know what you're going to do. She's tough as nails. I pity the fool. I pity the fool. And then lowly of fame, it just got a university of Michigan. Oh, my brilliant daughter. That's a good school. It's incredible. And she's in love with her new boyfriend, Owen. And he's great. He's an incredible kid. And then my, my buddy Luka,

my, my little boys, 12 years old. So crazy. What does your life look like now? When you go from all of all of this restaurants and you're in and you're working seven days ago. How many restaurants are there at this point? Yeah. Like you had to tell Michael the 36 restaurants. It's not really. And they're all over the place. We're about to open Nashville, Tennessee. We have a restaurant, St. Petersburg, Florida, which come to Austin. You're going to come to Austin? Dude, we're looking

man. We've been looking at Austin for a long time. He's growing up. I know. You know what? We need

“more spaces. I think like we need like it's. Yeah. There's a discussion on one right now.”

Can I tell you something for me to get a reservation? I swear to God. I just booked a reservation for April at the restaurants there. If I could not get a reservation, I'm like, who do I have to blow to get a reservation? You cannot get a reservation anywhere in the town. If I want to go to a restaurant, I have to plan three months in advance. You know what's a pretty good name for a restaurant? Him and her. It's pretty good. Well, we're rebranding.

There's more stuff over there, guys. You want to do a restaurant? Yeah. There's more than a restaurant? More than a bar. Tell him we're a couple of weeks. That would be a pretty weird. Me and your dad. I mean, come on. That's a magic happening right now. I believe my buddy that was in that business forever. He moved out the nest. There's like all these, it's funny. A lot of the guys that kind of got out of

that world. Family and friends, they came to Austin down like, and now they're like, looking around and they're like, "Hey, maybe I need another place out here." So where else are your restaurants?

called Laser Wolf, that is a juggernaut in New York City. Fun story, fun celebrity story about laser walls. I wanted to tell you how you came up with that name. Yeah, it's the dentist and Fiddler on the roof. Okay. And so it's in Israeli restaurant. Michael won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in America. I opened that restaurant right when I was going through all that work,

“and it became like therapy for me. And when we opened, I said, "You know what?”

I'm going to go to Brooklyn for a month and I'm going to stay in Brooklyn. I'm going to work every service." And so I was working every service. And when I very first opened my first restaurant, I thought, "I'm going to get subscription to New York Times. Maybe feel cool." And Ruth Reichel was the New York Times food critic back then, and I would read her articles. And when I was very young, I took one of her articles, and I went to New York by myself, and I'd dined into one of the restaurants

that she reviewed, because I wanted to see if I was smart enough to have the same experience that she did. So I'm working laser wolf, and the last night I was there, she came into the restaurant,

and I'd never matter before. And I went to the table and I told her the story, and she goes,

"What restaurant review was it?" And I said, "It was a Union Pacific." And she looked at me, and she goes, "The woman next to me is moaning." That's the first line of the review. I go, "That's good." She's moaning because the food's so good. That is such a good line. Such a good line. So at the end of service, I put down soft serve, because we end the meal with a different soft serve. We, and she had told me and during that meal that was the best French fries with Tini, catch it, she'd ever had. And so I laid

down the fries as a dipping vehicle for the soft serve. And she took a bite of it, and she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down, and she goes, "Kevin, this time it's me that's moaning." So good. And I was like, "Wow, that's cool." And so, that's a good line. But I left town, and then two weeks later, Howard Stern was talking out of show that he hadn't been out to eat since COVID, and that Kimmel was going to make him

go out to eat, and it started as a two-top, but then Aniston joined, John Ham joined, Jason Bateman joined, Justin Thurod joined, and you could imagine this ten-top walking in with all those huge stars, and you know, Stern's like six-foot six or whatever, the whole restaurant stopped. Yeah, it was just staring, staring. And so the next day, that was picture was everywhere, we just like kind of exploded, and sometimes that's fun marketing or something.

Yeah, that's great marketing. What is your life look like now with all these restaurants? Is are you in the restaurant or no? I don't walk restaurants like I used to, because I walked restaurants six days a week for 27 years. And so, it's a lot. So I sprint in and out of it. So when Nashville opens, I'm going to be in Nashville a lot for a couple of months. Just like I did with Laser Wolf, I'm going to work a ton of services.

So you sort of massage it to make sure it's right? Right. Do is the culture right, do we need to change things? I've never had a restaurant where you build the blueprint, and then you open it, and you're not like we got to change this this and this. It's kind of like a play. You know, there's that, there's previews, and you do that first preview, and you're just like, well, we got to change this line, and this doesn't work right,

and let's massage this dialogue. What are maybe the top three to five mistakes most new restaurant tours make? Well, first of all, they do unrealistic performance. So they'll look at

“like the most successful restaurants in town, and they're like, I think we're going to do 11.6”

million. Right. And so in they design a restaurant based on those sales figures, and I always tell

people, I'm like, first restaurant, low budget, don't take too much money from family. You know, do it scrappy, and the great thing is, is today's age of journalism really likes the young scrappy restaurants. They like Blair Witch Project, man. They like something shot on a handheld camera, so pour over every plate, be super nice to everybody, and be there every night, and so people see you there. And then if that works, build the bigger restaurant. And so I think that you got to

take it really personally, and if you really want it to succeed, you know, you see all the, you see all these fancy chefs on TV, living the glamorous life, in a glamour in the beginning, and there is a pay-in process, like a pension. And if you really want to be great, you're going to have to pay in. How do you fire someone? You've probably fired a lot of people.

“Oh, man, I don't, I don't love, I don't love the firing, but I think you have to take a motion”

out of it, and I think you have to be very honest with someone of why you're doing it. Okay. Thoughtful, empathetic, give them a real reason, why it's happening, and then give them some sort of hope. And so that's nice, I like that. It's like, it shouldn't be a surprise by the time you get to the firing. It shouldn't be the quick acts. It's like, we've had three sit-downs,

and let me tell you what the problem is. Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I sat you down three

because this is what's been happening, but I still hope for you. And I want you to be better,

“and here's what you have to do to get through it. And I'm sorry that we're going to have to break”

up, but it doesn't mean we can't get back together someday. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online, whether you're just starting out or scaling your business. Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain. Showcase your offerings with the professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. We absolutely love Squarespace. We've been talking

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I want to tell you about the charity that I am so passionate about. And it is called "I Stand With My Pack." They are committed to getting dogs fostered and adopted. I have been a fan of the specific charity for about five years when my daughter was born. I met a woman named Lucy and she was helping

me with Saza and she told me all about this incredible charity I stand with my pack where they

helped animals find homes that were in really bad conditions. And I started following the Instagram account, fell in love with what they were doing and then decided to partner with them to bring awareness

“to their cause. If you're looking to adopt or foster a dog, you have to check them out.”

It's "I Stand With My Pack." They are accepting donations too if you can't adopt or foster. And all of the money goes to their mission, which is to help dogs with major medical needs that are often not seen by adopters or other rescuers. Check them out. I stand with my pack.org. Well, I have a friend who used to work in the Michael Meena restaurants. Oh, yeah, right. I know those guys. I know Michael for a long time.

And he was telling me about like exactly. He was saying basically you sit down with someone. You tell him the same thing three times. First time it's like, hey, did you understand it? Love it? Okay. That's right. Second time, hey, let me make sure you understand it this time. Mark goes here. He said third time it's okay. I've told you you've acknowledged you understood it. But now you gotta go. Basically, it's like basically like three times.

The first time it's on the managers and it's taking second time, it's making sure that like what you're trying to convey is understood and expressed. And then third time it's okay, you're just not getting what I'm putting down. In the old days, I would go into a management meeting. And I would say of, you know, if we had 15 captains, I would say, guys, who is below the line? Who's the two worst? And they might say, everybody's great.

Like, if we drew a line, everybody's about the line, they're like, okay, you know,

“Tom and Gina are the two below the line people. What I'm like, what are we doing?”

Are we managing them up? Are we mentoring them? Have we had sit downs with them? Or are we going to go our separate ways? And I remember somebody who'd been on that list six times and the Chicago Truman Food Critic came in. And I still have the text exchange because when he retired, I read it at a party and it was like Kevin, Phil Patel just walked in. And I was like, fuck. And I was like, what tables he's sitting at? I was like table 22. And I was like, I hate table 22.

And I was like, who's waiting on them? They're like, Gina. And I was like, damn, I hate Gina. So it was this, it was this whole lesson that I went back to the manager. And I was like, you know, and we kind of had to move Gina off the table a little bit, move somebody else in. And I was like, now do you understand? And he, he was not great at mentoring people in. That's a good lesson. What is your next chapter? What can we expect from you? Are you going to

open like a hundred more restaurants? Are you focused on like, what you already have? I mean,

you got a lot of restaurants. Well, listen, I have an incredible partner named Rob Cats. And

but more importantly, we have an incredible team of people. And you know, my, my seesweet, my executive partners, my chef partners, these are people I've worked with for two decades. That's so cool. Ian Goldberg, it was the first person we ever hired. He's worked first for 23 years. He went from bartender to COO. Oh, I mean, it's been incredible. So, Boca restaurant grew bigger than me. And we're going to open up more restaurants. I really like writing.

Yeah, you're good at it. Thank you. You're very good at it. You got, you got a, you got a talent. Thanks. I'm writing a book right now. Called, um, are you sure you're not an asshole? And so it's a book about self-awareness. But more importantly, it's a book about 15 things that I'm about to go do as an adventure. And every chapter is one of them that's going to kind of shake me a little bit. You know, one of them is go help someone somewhere where they can't say thank you.

Oh, give away something in your life that's meaningful to you. Not access to someone else who would mean more to. This is going to be a good one. Hike to base camp at Everest just because it's difficult. And so every chapter is going to be one of these things to see how it bends may. That'll be a good one. You started doing any of the challenges yet, or you know,

“not yet. I'm giving myself 27 months to do it. Before you go, you have to tell us what your”

experience was on the bear. It was amazing. Um, first of all, I walked in and my trailer was right next

to Olivia Coleman. And so that was the first person I saw. And then I got to watch her do a monologue. So it was like watching Michael Jordan, you know, shoot baskets. And you played yourself. I played myself. I'm going to had a scene with Jeremy on the white. And he's just so nice and

But it was fun. Chris Store, who's the writer and director and creator is a genius. And just I love

watching people who are really good at their jobs work like you, too. And he's very quick. He moves fast and not too many takes. And it was fun to watch him interact with everybody. So if we want to watch that episode, do you know what the episode is? The episode's called Forever. It's the finale of season three. And it kind of presupposes that Carmy and I used to work together at the number one restaurant in the world. And we run into each other in the hallway. And you know, we ask me how the

restaurants are going. And you've lived a colorful life. It's been colorful. I'll take it a little more in black and white. And you're next restaurant can be a library in Austin. And you can have the books and the food. And we won't have to call four months in advance to get a reserve. Yeah, open a place and then just what's going on? You are open a place that Austin. I love to hear that there's that much demand Austin. Well, I don't even think about it. It's one of those cities

similar to like a Miami or other places where a lot of people moved post pandemic. Yes. And then now a lot more is having a lot of tech happening out there, a lot of finance. I was about to say

“that one thing you have on Miami though is that the tech business has gone crazy there, right?”

Your you guys are top five now. Yeah. And maybe some of the like local Austin rights would not be excited about me a transplant saying, but I feel like it's both my sons are there now. Born there. So I feel like I'm like local now. And I've been there long enough. But like I think there's an appetite from a lot of people as the city's grown to expand beyond what was there.

And there's a lot of excitement from maybe people that I've never thought about being there before

right there. People like yourself where they're like trying to look at it is like, oh, you know, there's an appetite from the consumer base now that maybe wasn't there before for these. Why've already drawn it up? Celebrity major D, Michael Bostock and Celebrity bartender Lauren Bostock. Every Thursday night in Austin. I honestly think that you would crush there. I mean, you've got a lot going on, but you would crush there. We have a couple of talks

going on in Austin right now. Okay. We'll stay in touch and then you've got to come back any time that you're in town. Let us know. Especially when the book is, by the way, the book is called the bottom of the book. The bottom of the book came out in November on Abrams Press and I've been on tour. I've done 60 book stops so far which has been wild and a lot of fun. And you can get it

“on Amazon. I got it on my Kindle and I highlighted so much of it. I loved it. I think that all of”

you guys will really like it. So in 27 months, what's the challenges we complete? You come back along. Yeah, come back on. We'll talk about it. And then we'll figure out if we're all assholes or not. Yeah, I heard the answer for myself. You have a fucking succession deem song on your phone. By the way, the impetus for the book was I had the worst conversation. I was with my girlfriend Ananya and I had the worst conversation I've ever had with two individuals and I came out of that

conversation and I'm like, "What am I supposed to learn from this conversation with these bad humans?" And instead of being sanctimonious, I was just like, you know, there are parts of me that I don't like to and how can I create some sort of system to become a better person? Well, we say said that pick what you don't like about a person and see where you do the same thing. Yeah, that's right. Did you write that down? Where did you go? Where can everyone find you

and buy the book and say hi on Instagram? Instagram, I am Kevin Bamboke on Instagram. The book you can find anywhere. Book stores, Amazon, you name it. And the restaurants, Boke restaurant group, it's BokeGRP.com, or all the restaurants. And you know, I'm at a lot of the restaurants a lot of the time, not as much as I used to be, but I'm still in all those restaurants and I'm soon to be roping in Nashville, we're opening in Denver, and we're opening a restaurant in Chicago in a couple

months with Brian Lockwood who was the chef to go, you know, love Madison Park when it was the number one restaurant. You know, he came to Chicago and we're doing a restaurant with him called Genji and so I cannot believe I haven't been to one of your restaurants. I need to go.

I can't believe he never went to girl in the grocery. I've heard all about him. I've heard about him.

There's a girl to go here in LA. We have one in Arts District.

“I did not know that. I actually, I think you said that in your book. I did.”

But that's far away, right? From here or no? Arts District. So it's kind of a hall. Okay. Well, I want to go to one of your restaurants. So we're coming to Chicago. We'll do it through her. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to set up a progressive dinner for you guys where you go to four restaurants in one night. And we're going to do a couple. We do this for the special people. So what do you do? You just pop in and you try one thing there and then you pop

minutes at each restaurant a time and out. It's really, it's really a blast. You're locked out by the

“time it's over. Do you have, this is my last question. Do you have less food sales now that everyone”

is on semi-glutide? No. Are you sure? I'm sure. Do you know that I just found out that the air

plane weight has gone down like the airplane weight because people are lighter. So it's not a weird question.

Who's keeping track of these stats? It was on Instagram. It's not real. It's not real. That's a real

“stat. That is, you just got sucked into the Instagram. I think I'm a conspiracy whole. I don't see”

more smoke of the, am I a conspiracy theorist? That would be like that would be a conspiracy. But then the conspiracy is come true. So what does that show for? I guess you'll be 17% smarter by listening to

“this podcast. Yeah, exactly. Are you not at all? And, yeah, between now and next time I come,”

everybody figure out if you're an hour or not. The bottom was cup guys go check it out and then when you get the new one you come back and we'll talk about that one too. And I will be going on my three restaurant tour next time I'm in Chicago. Thank you. And opening in Austin soon. Yeah, exactly.