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

33:44And how long did they leave you alone for? 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. I went and did ayahuasca. And? That's the hardest 10 hours of my life. Why? 10 years of therapy in 10 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. Most of the time, I didn't know that I was in the room. I was back in those places.

34:26and it's been incredibly effective with soldiers who had PTSD 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 is one enough? It's a great question. I sure don't want to do it again. It's awful. It's not like an enjoyable. No, it's work. 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 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 that was it i sat in the sadness for for 10 hours and then three days later I had the lightest and greatest sleep in my life.

35:26Do you feel like it kind of got 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. Um, 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, uh, I could sit with and talk to her about it. um and so that was super important all that work that i was going on and doing at that at that time and then not having to worry about work for a little while um stopping drinking the the big problem with drinking was um 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.

36:17And so I spoke to a friend of mine and I'm like, well, I'm not an alcoholic. I only drink like one day a week. And he goes, but what happens? And I go, well, I feel like I want to kill myself afterwards. He goes, well, how long has that been going on? I said 10 years. He goes, Kevin, you can call it whatever you want to call it. And so I went cold turkey on drinking. 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 young girl, is you go in the back in the closet and you take a couple sips of wine and you do it all throughout your shift and you don't get too drunk because you're serving people, but it's almost like a slow drip.

36:57That's not the way you were drinking. I never did that. So in my 20s, it was always after service. Sorry, Daddy. I'm sure Dad's been there. But what I would do is... Dad was in the closet too, haven't you? Dad was in the closet. Dad had a tequila shot. Probably had a couple of vodkas. I would get done with a shift and it would be like 10 to 1030. And that's when the place would kind of shift to a party. And I would go up there to quote Johnny Depp and order my mega pint of Cabernet. Yeah. 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.

37:37And then I would drink kind of the rest of the night, but post service. and then when I got to my 30s, it was a moderated version of that. By the time I got to my 40s, it was only on the weekends and then by my mid to late 40s, it was only on Saturday night. You had a discipline around it but it 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. 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 it's called vesper it tastes like an aperol spritz yes yes yes and i put i put my um my pellegrino 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 Aperol spritz every night.

38:38We have a lot of friends that were in the nightlife and restaurant business and he was explaining to me and he recently cut alcohol cold 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 describes me he's like he's like you know how you came into our spots you'd have like dinner and you go to the club and have drinks and all that it's like you know you do that like in the weekend I'm like yeah he goes well he's like i never left that first night you came in and then you like left and went about your life he's like i just never left he's like i stayed there for 40 years and he's like so 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 right 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 i think at some point it just overwhelms and catches up it does i drink a weird amount of iced tea now oh and i get i get very angry when people don't have iced tea or or i'll ask them to make green tea and put it over ice i would have had that for you ready to go had i known that next time you come on the show i will have that and i just dust the room with a little bit of cocaine okay all right half rim of cocaine holy joke get out the cocaine i think it's a joke people it's a joke guys the dear media cocaine is amazing you know i heard radio shrugs were nothing compared to 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.

40:19My 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. Michael's my mom. I'm my dad. Um, weird dynamic. Yeah, it's weird. I gotta go do ayahuasca, but I think they don't realize like how crazy it is on a relationship. And in your book, you kind of touch on your marriage where you, 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. What was that like?

40:54Well, I mean, a lot of times Courtney, who's my ex-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 um and i i think that was absolutely the truth so you know yeah really hard on relationships my whole life um you know my girlfriend now anya 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 that i met her at this time but yeah really hard on um really hard on court.

41:45And 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, 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 if serving is 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.

42:23Correct. I was fending for myself. Part of the independence that I got and the reason that I could drop out of college and drive down to Florida by myself 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. And sometimes, like I think the way I said in the book, Dave Mason's got a song, there ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree.

42:57And we had just gotten to a point where we were much different people than when we met. She was very young when we met. she was what were we 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 almost 22 year old daughter at Pepperdine she's so cute I saw her on your Instagram you're in trouble man oh I don't know what you're going to do she's tough as nails I pity the fool that messes with I pity the fool and then Lola Bame it just got into university of michigan my brilliant daughter that's a good school it's incredible um and and she's in love with her new boyfriend owen and um he's great he's an incredible kid and then my my buddy luca my my little boy he's 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 a week.

43:59And how many restaurants are there at this point? You got to tell Michael the... 36 restaurants. Whoa, man. It's gnarly. And they're all over the place. We're about to open in Nashville, Tennessee. We have a restaurant in St. Petersburg, Florida. Why don't you come to Austin? You're going to come to Austin? Dude, we're looking, man. You should talk to me and Michael. We've been looking at Austin for a long time. It's going up. I know it is. And you know what? We need more spaces, I think. Like we need... 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.

44:35If I cannot get a reservation I'm like who do I have to blow to get a reservation? Hopefully nobody. 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. Do you know what's a pretty good name for a restaurant? Him and her. It is a pretty good name. Well we're rebranding. You can have it.

44:55Kevin Boehm:Dang it. Go open the restaurant But you know There's more stuff Guys you want to do A restaurant together Lauren can bark Every couple of weeks That would probably Go pretty wild Me and your dad Come on My dad listening right now You don't even know There's magic happening Right now You know what's funny My buddy that was in That business forever He moved out there So 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 And now they're like Looking around They're like hey Maybe I need another Place out here So where else Are your restaurants keep going so we've we have we have three in brooklyn with an incredible chef named michael solomanov um called laser wolf that is a juggernaut in in new york city fun story fun celebrity story about laser wolf i wanted you to tell me how you came over that name yeah it's a good name so it's it's the dentist and fiddler on the roof okay and so it's an 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 gonna go to brooklyn for a month and i'm gonna i'm gonna stay in brooklyn i'm gonna work every service and so i was working every service and when i very first opened my first restaurant i thought i'm gonna get a subscription to the new york times made me 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 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.

46:28So I'm working Laser Wolf and the last night I was there, she came into the restaurant and I'd never met her 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 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 it. 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 and she had told me and during that meal that was the best french fries with teeny ketchup she ever had and so i laid down the fries as a dipping vehicle for the soft serve and she took a bite of it 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 that's cool that's cool and so that's a good But I left town and then two weeks later, Howard Stern was talking on a show that he hadn't been out to eat since COVID and that Kimmel was going to make him go out to eat.

47:25And it started as a two top, but then Aniston joined, Jon Hamm joined, Jason Bateman joined, Justin Theroux joined. And you can imagine this 10 top walking in with all those huge stars and Stern's like six foot six or whatever. The whole restaurant stopped. yeah everyone just is staring staring and so the next day that was picture was everywhere we just like kind of exploded and sometimes that's fun marketing yeah that's great marketing what does 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 um because i i walked restaurants six days a week for 27 years um and so It's a lot.

48:09It'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 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. I 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 restaurateurs 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 and they design a restaurant based on those sales figures.

48:59And I always tell people, I'm like, first restaurant, low budget. Don't take too much money from family. 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 a 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 this, you see all these fancy chefs on TV, living the glamorous life.

49:41It ain't glamor 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 love the firing, but I think you have to take emotion out of it, and I think you have to be very honest with someone of why you're doing it. Thoughtful, empathetic, give them a real reason why it's happening, and then give them some sort of hope. That's nice. I like that. 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.

50:23Here's what I'm trying to accomplish. I sat you down three times. At this point, I can't have one of my best customers coming in and having you wait on them because this is what's been happening. But I still have 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 a professional website, grow your brand and get paid all in one place.

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54:02Start shopping now at therealreal.com slash skinny. Quick break to talk about Keon Aminos. As I read this spot right now, I am currently on the road traveling in our LA office on the go. And there's one thing that I never leave home without, and that is my Keon Aminos. It's really hard for me to nail the diet that I have when I'm at home. So I need to make extra sure that I'm getting all the essential amino acids, which is why I love taking Keon Aminos so much. It's a formula based on 30 years of peer-reviewed clinical research. We've had the founder of Keon Angelo on this podcast multiple times talking about all of the benefits that aminos can provide.

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55:29All you have to do is go to getkion.com slash skinny for 20 % off. That's getkion.com slash skinny. 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 this specific charity for about five years. When my daughter was born, I met a woman named Lucy, and she was helping me with Zaza, 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.

56:16If 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. IstandWithMyPack.org. Well, I have a friend who used to work in the Michael Mina restaurants. Oh, yeah. 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 them the same thing three times.

56:53First time, it's like, hey, did you understand it? That's right. Second time, hey, let me make sure you understand it this time. The fork goes here. He said third time, it's okay, I've told you, you've acknowledged, you've understood it, but now you got to go basically. It's basically like three times. Like first time it's on the manager's mistake. 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, if we had 15 captains, I would say, guys, who's below the line?

57:24Who's the two worst? And they might say, everybody's great. If we drew a line, everybody's above the line. They're like, okay, Tom and Gina are the two below the line people. And 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 like six times and the Chicago Tribune 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 table is he sitting at?

58:01I was like, table 22. And I was like, I hate table 22. And I was like, who's waiting on him? They were like, Gina. And I was like, damn, I hate Gina. And so 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 was not great at mentoring people. 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, man.

58:39Listen, I have an incredible partner named Rob Katz. But more importantly, we have an incredible team of people. And my C-suite, my executive partners, my chef partners, these are people I've worked with for two decades. That's so cool. Ian Goldberg was the first person we ever hired. He's worked for us for 23 years. He went from bartender to COO. I mean, it's been incredible. So Belka Restaurant Group's 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. Thank you. You got a talent. Thanks. I'm writing a book right now called Are You Sure You're Not an Asshole?

59:18And 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. Give away something in your life that's meaningful to you, not excess, 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 me. That'll be a good one.

59:58Have you started doing any of the challenges yet? Nope, 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 like and you played yourself i played myself i mean i had a scene with jeremy allen white and he's he's just so nice and so fun it's a little nerve-wracking because everybody's watching you and you know obviously i'm not an actor, but it was fun.

1:00:38Chris Storer, 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 two. 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, and it's the finale of season three. and it kind of presupposes that Carmi 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 he asked 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 moving forward maybe your 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 reservation open a place and then just...

1:01:32What's going on? You got to open a place out in Austin. I love to hear that there's that much demand, Austin. Every restaurant. if you 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, like 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? You guys are top five now. Yeah, and like maybe some of the like local Austinites would not be excited about me at transplant saying, but I feel like both my sons were there now, born there, so I feel like I can say I'm like local now and I've been there long enough.

1:02:08But 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 have never thought about being there before coming there. People like yourself where they're like starting to look at it as like, oh, you know, there's an appetite from the consumer base now that maybe wasn't there before for these kind of people. I've already drawn it up. Celebrity, Major D, Michael Bostic and celebrity bartender Lauren Bostic 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.

1:02:43We have a couple talks going on in Austin right now. Okay. We'll stay in touch, and then you've got to come back anytime that you're in town. Let us know. By the way, the book is called The Bottomless Cup. Yes, the book. The Bottomless Cup came out in November on Abrams Press and I've been on tour. I've done 60 bookstops 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, once the challenges are complete, you come back on. Yeah, come back on.

1:03:21And we'll talk about it. And we'll figure out if we're all assholes or not. Yeah. Uh-oh. I think I kind of know the answer for myself. you have the fucking succession theme song on your phone so that's it's probably a yes by the way the impetus for the book was i had the worst conversation um i was i was with my girlfriend anya 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 too and how can i create some sort of system to become a better person louise hay 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 what did you say where can everyone find you and buy the book and say hi on instagram um instagram i am kevin bame boca on instagram the book you can find anywhere bookstores amazon you name it um and the restaurants boca restaurant group it's boca grp.com are 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 we're opening 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 de cuisine of Madison Park when it was the number one restaurant in the world he came to Chicago and we're doing a restaurant with him called Gingy and so I cannot believe I haven't been to one of your restaurants I need to go I can't I can't believe it either you never went to girl in the goat 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 or actually i think you said that in your book i did but that's far away right from here or no arts districts 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 a tour 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 that'd be so we're going to do a couple we do this we do this for for the special people so what do you do so you just pop in you try one thing there then you Yeah, it's basically like about three and a half hours, but you do like 45 minutes at each restaurant.

1:05:38We time it out. We would love that. It's really a blast. You're blacked 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 airplane 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 i thought real it's not a real stat that's that is you just got sucked into the instagram i think i'm a conspiracy lauren's book would be am i a conspiracy theorist that would be like that would be come true so what does that just FYI guys you'll be 17 smarter by listening to this podcast yeah yeah exactly are you an asshole and yeah between now and the next time i come everybody figure out if you're an asshole or not.

1:06:31Yes, yes. The Bottomless 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. Yes. Exactly.