Other
Kevin Boehm
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
The Path
At the center of Kevin Boehm’s work is ownership with range: building restaurants, shaping rooms, and keeping the operating idea tight enough for chefs to do their best work. Since 2002, Boka Restaurant Group has been the main structure around that approach, with great chefs, inspired design, and enlightened hospitality as its working language. The broader arc also runs through the Independent Restaurant Coalition, where the same operational instincts are applied at industry scale. Study at University of Illinois and National Louis University sits ahead of the early ownership stakes that formed the rest of the record. From 1993, Kevin Boehm was owner, Lazy Days Café at Lazy Days Café in Seaside, Florida; from 1995, owner, Indigo Wine Bar at Indigo Wine Bar in Seaside, Florida. He later served as owner at Indio in Springfield, Illinois, and owner at Six Degrees in Nashville, Tennessee. Those rooms point to a throughline that has stayed practical: how a restaurant reads when you enter it, how the kitchen’s tempo lands in the dining room, and how service can stay disciplined without losing warmth. That combination of room, pace, and tone became the basis for larger-scale work later on. Today, Kevin is co-founder and co-owner of Boka Restaurant Group (since 2002) and co-founder and leader of Independent Restaurant Coalition (since 2020). One role is about carrying a restaurant group over time; the other extends that work into advocacy for independent restaurants. The two together describe a career built on operating judgment and industry responsibility.
The Work Today
Since 2002, Boehm has served as Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Boka Restaurant Group. The company’s stated operating language — great chefs, inspired design, and enlightened hospitality — is the framework. It places creative talent, physical setting, and service in the same line of work, rather than treating them as separate departments. That is the shape of Boka Restaurant Group’s signature. Under Boehm’s leadership, the standard is consistent: the room has to be considered, the service has to be exact, and the hospitality has to hold across both. The work is less about a fixed formula than about keeping those parts in balance. He also works with the Independent Restaurant Coalition. Taken together, the current roles show two sides of the same operating discipline. Boka Restaurant Group carries the long view of a company founded in 2002 around great chefs, inspired design, and enlightened hospitality. The Independent Restaurant Coalition broadens that perspective to the independent restaurant field. Between them is a career shaped by continuity, adaptation, and attention to the conditions that keep restaurants viable.
Signature
Kevin Boehm is identified with Great chefs.
Acclaim
Kevin's honors include James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in America (2018).
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Kevin
What is Kevin Boehm's current role?
As of 2026, Kevin Boehm is Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder.
Where did Kevin Boehm train or study?
Kevin Boehm trained at University of Illinois and National Louis University.
What recognition has Kevin Boehm received?
James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in America (2018).
