Joiners

This week, we're joined by Chicago hospitality veteran Mike Boschert, whose career has taken him from rookie back waiter mishaps in Columbia, Missouri, to the openings of some of Chicago’s most beloved spots, and now to his role overseeing operations at the historic Medinah Country Club. Along the way, he’s built a career around relentless preparation, gracious hospitality, and the belief that mis...

For the first time in Joiners history, we welcome back a repeat guest: Mindy Segal. A longtime friend of the pod, Mindy remains one of our favorite people to talk to. She's funny, fearless, deeply thoughtful about hospitality, and never especially interested in keeping an opinion to herself (but she's working on it). She continues to hold it down at Mindy’s Bakery, the deeply personal neighborhood...

This week’s guest entered the restaurant business by offering strangers free labor at a dinner party. Sixteen years later, he’s still at it. Chef Nate Chung is the co-owner of Mott St, the enduring Logan Square restaurant known for Asian-American comfort food, one of the most celebrated burgers in the city, and the kind of hospitality that turns regulars into friends. He joins us at Joiners HQ to...

This week’s guest was sketching out his dream bakery in a high school notebook. That alone might not be too remarkable, but turning those daydreams into one of Chicago’s most talked-about bakeries certainly is. Pastry chef Justin Lerias is the owner of Del Sur Bakery, where Filipino flavors meet Midwestern pastry traditions in creations like longanisa croissants, turon danishes, and toasted rice c...

This week's guest is Chef Richie Farina, a man who turns food into theater without losing sight of flavor. A Johnson & Wales grad, three-time collegiate ice-carving champion, Moto alum, Top Chef competitor, and host of Carnival Kings, Richie has spent his career reworking familiar pleasures into strange, funny, technically impressive dishes, like Cuban sandwiches as cigars, smoked fish as a ri...

This week, we sit down with Chef Stephen Sandoval for a globetrotting whirlwind tour through a career that spans McDonald’s franchises in Southern California, Michelin-starred kitchens in the Bay Area, wood-fire cooking in Argentina, classical Mexican cuisine in Mexico City, and some of Chicago’s most celebrated restaurants. Stephen is a tour de force who’s worked alongside the likes of Rick Bayle...

We’ve wanted to have this week’s guest on since we started the podcast. Andrew Zimmerman is one of Chicago’s most respected chefs -- a five-time James Beard finalist and the chef behind Sepia’s remarkable 15-year Michelin star run. In a special episode, we hosted the Gratuity Round live during a dinner at the Stock headquarters featuring Andrew and Jonathan Zaragoza before sitting down with Andrew...

This week’s guest is an enjoyable diversion for us. Chef Zealand started cooking as a teenager, learning almost entirely through curiosity, YouTube, and trial and error before graphic design school, COVID, and a few hard pivots pushed him toward kitchens for real. He went from cooking in a senior living facility to grinding on the line at a suburban tavern, all while quietly building the voice and...

This week's guest is Chef Zubair Mohajir -- and he's got a lot going on. A former finance guy who found his calling in the kitchen after the 2008 crash, Zubair has since built one of the most compelling culinary identities in Chicago, rooted in the idea that food is migration made edible. He's the force behind Lilac Tiger, the Coach House, and Mirra -- and this summer, he's opening three more: Mar...

This week, we’re sitting down with Megan Marshall, the publisher behind Edible Chicago, whose work starts from a simple but expansive belief: food is never just food. It’s access, labor, sustainability, culture, policy, pleasure, and community, all in conversation with each other. After years moving through food, hospitality, and food systems work, she took over Edible Chicago with a vision to bro...

This week, we’re joined by Chef Noah Sandoval, the chef behind Chicago’s two-Michelin-starred Oriole and one of the more instinctive voices working in tasting menus today. An army brat with a Navy SEAL dad, Sandoval dropped out of high school, started washing dishes, and worked his way up through kitchens in Virginia and Chicago without much of a plan beyond getting better. He never really chased...

This week, we're sitting down with Chef Lee Wolen, the quietly pragmatic leader behind some of Chicago’s most enduring kitchens, whose approach to food rejects gimmick in favor of clarity, restraint, and great product. Equal parts craftsman and operator, Wolen has built a reputation not just for consistency at Boka, but for cultivating teams that grow with him. He joins us in the studio for a wide...

This week, we’re joined by Chef Sujan Sarkar, the chef and owner behind Chicago’s Michelin-starred Indienne and a growing group of restaurants that includes Nadu, Sifr, Swadesi, and Baar Baar. As he puts it, he’s a systems man first and a chef second, which makes a lot of sense once you hear the story: from hotel management school in India, to Michelin-starred kitchens in London, to working at McD...

This week's guest is Rodrick Marcus -- international sourcer of mystery, master tea blender, and founder of Rare Tea Cellar. If it exists somewhere in the world and it's extraordinary, he's probably already found it. It all started with a trip to London as a kid, an obsession with afternoon tea, and a locked hotel hallway. Nearly 30 years later, Rodrick has built Rare Tea Cellar into a destination...

Doug Phillips studied architecture, which -- if you've ever watched him build a program -- actually makes a lot of sense. He came up through some of Logan Square's most beloved spots -- Boiler Room, Scofflaw, Heavy Feather, The Whistler -- developing a deep fluency in craft cocktails and the particular chaos of running a bar at the center of a neighborhood's golden era. Now, as a beverage lead at...

This week’s guest didn’t grow up dreaming of restaurant kitchens -- but after finding her way into culinary school and landing an internship at Blackbird, she's become a true mainstay. Under the mentorship of friend-of-the-pod Chef David Posey at Blackbird and later Elske, Chef Tayler Ploshehanski developed her voice through rigor, repetition, and a deep respect for craft. Now, as chef de cuisine...

We round out our pair of episodes at the Friends of James Beard Chef Invitational at Sand Valley with Amanda Rockman. After helping shape Chicago’s pastry scene in restaurants and hotels, opening teams across the city, Rockman is now back in Austin, where she runs Rockman Coffee + Bakeshop. In front of a live audience, we discuss her path through some of the country’s most demanding kitchens, the...

Damarr Brown is a chef and culinary leader known for his soulful, polished take on Southern cuisine; as the chef at Virtue Restaurant, he has become one of Chicago’s most celebrated voices in hospitality, a nationally recognized talent with a deep commitment to mentorship. He joins us for our first full-on live show at the Friends of James Beard Chef Invitational at Sand Valley, where he reflects...

Before he became a corporate chef building flavors with scientists and packaging engineers, Chef Danny Espinoza was a kid from Humboldt Park working nonstop and learning the hard way in demanding Chicago kitchens. Today, he wears two hats: R&D at ofi by day, and Santa Masa Tamaleria with his wife by night, with pop-ups and long-term ambitions always in motion. In this episode, Danny walks us t...

Born in Vigo, Spain to a Basque mother and Galician father, Chef Gabino Sotelino’s path to the kitchen began early and unfolded across some of the world’s great hotel dining rooms before landing in Chicago in the 1970s. Over the decades that followed, he helped shape the city’s rise as a serious dining destination, opening and guiding restaurants that would become institutions and introducing gene...

Mark Sotelino grew up in the kitchens and dining rooms of some of Chicago's most celebrated restaurants. His father, Chef Gabino Sotelino, emigrated from rural Spain and went on to partner with Rich Melman at Lettuce Entertain You to create landmarks like Ambria, Mon Ami Gabi, and Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!. Since then, Mark has built a 28-plus-year career of his own at Lettuce, rising from teenage host at...

If you’ve been to a major concert in the past thirty years, there’s a decent chance this week’s guest had a hand in fueling the talent. Debbie Sharpe, the charming Aussie behind The Goddess and Grocer, built her culinary chops touring the globe and cooking for the likes of Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones, and Paul McCartney before jumping off the tour bus and making Chicago her perman...

Rum -- despite its exotic reputation -- isn’t an escapist novelty so much as a lived-in, agricultural spirit, grounded in real places and real work. No one makes that case more convincingly than this week’s guest, Dan Smith, managing partner of Queen Mary Tavern, a Ukrainian Village institution and longtime favorite of the Joiners boys. Dan cut his teeth at The Violet Hour, then behind the bar at...

Chef Adam Sindler grew up inside Chicago’s first sushi restaurant, Kamehachi — founded by his Japanese immigrant great-grandmother and later revived by his mother and grandmother. A next-generation operator and creative force in the family business, Sindler left home to sharpen his craft at the Alinea Group, working as Kitchen Expo at the Michelin-starred Roister, before bringing big-league system...

Our reverence for Big Star is well-documented — and for good reason. For a wide range of people coming up in Chicago’s hospitality scene, the spot represented a proof of concept: that you could take something familiar, do it with conviction, and build a culture around it. Its mythos is legend — from strong margaritas to nightly cash-only bonanzas — and this week’s guest was there for all of it. La...