The Bottomless Cup

A Memoir of Secrets, Restaurants, and Forgiveness

An eye-opening, entertaining, and unflinchingly honest memoir that flows like The Tender Bar meets The Bear

James Beard Award–winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has opened forty restaurants in his thirty-year career. He's worked with hard-core line cooks and celebrity chefs, suffered embarrassing setbacks, and won Michelin stars. Today his Boka Group is one of the most successful restaurant companies in the world.

But Boehm's path was a complicated one. A turbulent family life and a shocking revelation about his father drove him out into the world in search of a home. He found one in restaurants. Amidst other gifted and damaged people, he discovered the magic of hospitality and the thrill of a dining room on the edge of chaos.

The Bottomless Cup is Boehm's vibrant, funny, and frank account of a life in and out of restaurants. This is a memoir about dropping out and finding your place, about opening nights and what comes after, about chefs, partners, guests, and critics. The Bottomless Cup is a story of ambition and adrenaline, of reaching remarkable highs and reckoning with the costs.

©2025 Kevin Boehm (P)2025 Tantor Media

Fascinating and Empathetic

Slightly slow start with a pickup around Ch.4 - only negative is the mixed narration

Raw Realities

A wonderful life story of the vagabond we are in the hospitality industry. The phrase "It's in our blood" comes to mind & is an understatement for sure.

Everyone is responsible and no one is to blame.

This story is beautifully told. The heros journey through the eyes of a midwestern boy making it big in the life he always dreamed of as a restauranteur. All the smiles and nods of success that create the outer persona to the heartbreaking moments that only some have the courage to face. The hero dissolving the avatar and finding his way to the truth within.

Memoirs aren’t supposed to be this good

I never leave 5 stars until a book has sat with me for a while. But for what this book is, a memoir, a life, a series of believable ups and downs, an entertaining cast of characters - many of whom i have encountered personally, it is very close to terrific. Maybe it is just plain terrific.

I don’t know how it will register with people who don’t have connections to Chicago, it’s restaurants, and a love of pop culture but all those things line up within me as a must read recommendation to anyone interested in anyone of the categories.

Great story!!

Very well written. I will definitely recommend this book. I’m curious what happened to Snoopy? Great job Kevin.