Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicholas Bodden.
Hi Nicholas, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
In the beginning, it was kinda just work. Getting my ass kicked from 2007 – 2014. Things started getting interesting after I got back from Singapore around the summer of 2015… What got me out to Singapore in the first place was an opportunity to help open a restaurant. It happened, it was great, I left back to NYC and eventually headed out west again to Santa Barbara, CA. Quickly and quite swiftly, I started Beefhearts along with Ron Allen, it was a Soul Food Pop-up and a la carte Catering Service. We blew the fuck up fast and while it lasted, it was a to of fun but cooking fried chicken in a winery parking-lot wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. The thought of graduating to a food truck was the least appealing thing I could think of.
It wasn’t long after the success of Beefhearts, I began turning my focus on a higher elevated event-driven experience. Thus spawning The Coterie Club. Focused around food, music, art, and soul The Coterie held a ticketed thirty seat dinner every week. Each event showcased five courses of fine-dining avant garde cuisine curated around musical performances and beverage pairings. The Coterie was the first time I felt like I was doing food closest to what I really wanted to do. Things were going really well, I was getting some recognition, gained a following, and was making some money.
Then, abruptly the whole world shut down.
There was no question of whether opening a restaurant in the midst of a pandemic was a good or bad idea. The restaurant was going to open either way, there was no other option. By the time I had put in my second offer to the Realtor for the restaurant space, I had about a few thousand dollars in my bank account. This was in May 2020. The landlord and I ended up striking a deal and the lease was ready to sign by July 1st. By the time July came around, I somehow ended up raising 70k. Blind fucking faith. A sharp determination to create something special.
The restaurant space was too small and located in an obscure part of town, lodged between a neighborhood dive bar and karate dojo. It was perfect. 300 sq feet of kitchen taken up mostly by a stone bottomed pizza oven, no dough mixer, no walk-in refrigerator, no freezer, no stovetop. We had two low boys and the oven, a few sinks, and a bathroom, thankfully. The dining room looked like something you’d see in Osaka, a cramped copper bar with five soda-fountain stools planted into the floor high wood-paneled ceiling, and that’s pretty much it.
Up until then, I’d been a fine-dining chef. I’d spent my teenage years working in delis and pizzerias in Long Island but had no intention on ever opening up a pizza shop. The place was too perfect to pass by, so the decision was made. We’d approach a New York-style pizzeria as if we were opening up a fine-dining restaurant. Everything was made in-house, hand-mixed dough, fresh pulled mozzarella, ricotta, Sausage, dried oregano, dressings, hot sauces and whatever we absolutely couldn’t make in-house, we found the best of. We tasted tomatoes for days, olive oils, parmesan, and wines. We opened our doors to the public in August 2020, a boiled-down menu of only four pies and two salads and a weekly special. 100 pies a day. We haven’t stopped in a year.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s been smoothish. A few hiccups along the way but for the most part, it’s been solid. Just an unrelenting amount of work, but that’s a given. Space has been the number one hurdle we’ve encountered. Hands Down. Because we have such limited space, we’ve had to compartmentalize our prep routines. Dough gets mixed by hand after dinner service through the night into the morning. The dough guy will switch out with the morning prep who’ll portion the dough from two nights prior and start chipping away on the daily tasks. It’s a 24-hour work cycle. The thing is, dough takes up real estate, especially because we have to have dough ready for the present day and fermenting for the future. 100 pies a day wasn’t a decision we made ourselves, it was the threshold of how many pies we could physically hold in the space we had. Due to that case everything else we make in-house usually has to be made every day or two: Since we’ve opened, we’ve gotten a few more refrigerators and built a shed but that’s the struggle, it’ll always be a struggle but that’s what makes Revolver unique.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In the beginning, I chose cooking as a job because it paid regularly. All my other artistic mediums weren’t paying the bills. I was a painter from New York living in Santa Barbara in 2009, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I took a job as a pastry cook at a French bakery because it seemed avant garde. The need to create was always there, coming from a family of artists, it was just natural. I was always looking for a new process, a new way to define art. Cooking turned into a passion through the process, It challenged me physically and mentally, pushed me further than I had been pushed up until then.
What are your plans for the future?
Too many plans. Opening up a restaurant is a bit obsessive, I think I started thinking about the next concept a few weeks into starting Revolver. Pizzeria number two is a natural choice, a Chinese food restaurant, New York style Deli, or the smallest steak house in the world perhaps?
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.revolversb.com
- Instagram: @revolversb
Image Credits
Carl Perry Sundae Cereal The last Peach
