The Bottomless Cup
A Memoir of Secrets, Restaurants, and Forgiveness
Abrams Press · Print & ebook · November 4, 2025
An eye-opening, entertaining, and unflinchingly honest memoir that reads like The Tender Bar meets The Bear James Beard Award–winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has opened 40 restaurants in his 30-year career.
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- Who it’s for
- A frank, funny restaurant memoir where ambition, hospitality, and their costs share the table.
- Themes
- Finding a sense of home, Family revelations, The costs of ambition
- Genres
- Food World Lives, Personal Memoirs, Chef & Restaurant Stories
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For younger readers: If You Can't Take the Heat, Food-related Stories, Salty, Bitter, Sweet
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Start with this bookAbout this book
An eye-opening, entertaining, and unflinchingly honest memoir that reads like The Tender Bar meets The Bear James Beard Award–winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has opened 40 restaurants in his 30-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.
Continue reading
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.
Beyond the Pass
A frank, funny restaurant memoir where ambition, hospitality, and their costs share the table.
Come here for
- The charged rhythm of restaurant life, from opening nights to what follows
- A candid look at ambition, belonging, and the costs of success
Expect
- Humor and candor alongside embarrassing setbacks and remarkable highs
- A life in and out of restaurants, among chefs, partners, guests, and critics
Where it sits
| Food World Lives | 85% |
|---|---|
| Chef & Restaurant Stories | 54% |
| Personal Memoirs | 46% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Food World Lives
- The Food Business
- Leadership
- Authors
- Kevin Boehm
- Publisher
- Abrams Press
- Published
- November 4, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Finding a sense of home · Family revelations · The costs of ambition
- Reading lane
- Food World Lives