FCSI THE AMERICAS CONFERENCE 2026 KEYNOTE SPEAKER


HOSPITALITY AS AN INFINITE GAME


Boka Restaurant Group co-founder and Te Bottomless Cup author Kevin Boehm shares his inspiring story with Lauren Hurrell, outlining the keys to three decades of success


Can you share a brief overview of your background? What brought you to restaurants in the first place? Kevin Boehm: I’ve opened 50 restaurants over the last 33 years. I dropped out of college because I wanted to open my own restaurant. So, I packed my Jeep up at age 19, drove to Florida, and lived in my car for a little while. I wrote a very embellished resume one morning and faked my way into a captain’s job at the most fine-dining restaurant in town. I saved fifty grand over the next three years, living in squalor, and


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opened a six-table restaurant with the money I had saved at age 22 in a little town called Seaside, Florida.


Tat was the first of the


50. I was hooked instantly. I had four restaurants in the South in the 1990s. I moved to Chicago in 2001 and partnered with Rob Katz. We started Boka Restaurant Group. Rob and I recently opened the 46th restaurant that we’ve done together. We’ve built a company around chefs and their identities. Every one of our restaurants has a chef partner, so we build chef-driven restaurants


that are equal parts great food, enlightened hospitality, and we work with some of the best design teams in the world. Tis is the alchemy of design, hospitality, and food.


What do you love most about working in restaurants, and what are the key challenges you face? KB: I love working with talented, hardworking artisans who love to collaborate. Tat’s it. I enjoy being around smart people, each in the right role, working together to build something great. Tere’s nothing more exciting. Restaurants are problem machines. With so many variables – the public, time, à la minute cooking, equipment, technology – some nights will be tough. You just try to minimize those and, when they happen, rise above and write a new script.


What key themes can we expect from your keynote presentation at the conference? KB: As we get older, we get smarter. In a perfect world, in this infinite game that is life, we should get better. But most of the time we don’t. In football, old quarterbacks do really well in the National Football League. It’s one of the few sports older people do well in because the game slows down if you can keep your body healthy. In life, the equivalent is staying interested. So, I’m going to talk a lot about life as an infinite game: the game is to keep playing and to get smarter at it.


If you can stay interested, you will excel in whatever world you’re in. I want to talk about how I stay interested and how those qualities are transferable across industries.


What do you think the next five years will look like for restaurateurs, and the wider industry in general? KB: I feel safe knowing that as technology grows, people crave analogue, tactile, and shared experiences. So, my business is secure. I need to keep using technology to improve the human side of my work. Our restaurants focus on experiences, and people will always want that. I often joke: as long as people are attracted to each other, my business will be fine.


What have been the biggest learnings from your experience with Boka Restaurant Group, and what is the top advice you would give foodservice consultants, chefs and designers today? KB: I’ve learned a lot about human nature. You can’t get stuck on how people are today; things always change, so you have to keep up. Te best consultants understand who they’re working with and what those people need. It’s about more than just one thing – capitalism, humanity, all of it. Te best kitchen equipment person I’ve known worked in kitchens and could explain things in a way that proved he knew my reality – not just the equipment, but my life.


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