Interview with Entrepreneur Heather Bublick

Entrepreneur Heather Bublick

There’s nothing more fascinating than watching a woman fulfilling their purpose with passion. This women’s history month we’re highlighting a woman that keeps the momentum and spice of life moving all year long. Entrepreneur, Heather Bublick, is the CEO of the delicious barbecue restaurant and catering company Soul and Smoke. She is also a community activist for organizations like the non profit World Central Kitchen. Heather is a cohost and ambassador for the women’s action movement, Let’s Talk Womxn Chi. In addition, her biggest role of all is raising two young daughters. How does she do it? Read on below for our inspiring one on one interview.

Tavi J One on One Interview with Entrepreneur Heather Bublick

Can you tell us a little bit about your background within the restaurant industry?

My first job was at a neighborhood deli. I was going to school and I got a degree in non-fiction writing. Then I went to culinary school at Kendall college and thought I was going to write a cook book, but never actually did that. My internship was at a restaurant where I worked the front of the house. I fell in love with restaurant life.

March is Women’s History Month. As women we do it all with such finesse all year long. What advice would you give to working women? Especially those with young children like your daughters?

The biggest piece of advice I would give is to make sure you have a village. There’s tons of moving parts and pieces. It is difficult, but it’s doable as long as you have the proper structure in place. I lean on my mom a lot and I have a nanny. It’s essential to have people who can fill in for me when I’m not around.

Heather’s Family

What advice are you planning to give your daughters on choosing their careers?

At the end of the day running a restaurant is hard. Every industry has their hurdles. In choosing a career I will tell them to love what you do. It sounds so cliche, but if you love what you do anything is possible. At Kendall college I was in a program with people who already had their masters degree and decided to do a career change and go after what they were passionate about. Being in the restaurant industry every day is a different grind, but I think that’s what people fall in love with. There’s a fire to put out every day, but that keeps things exciting.

Have you seen the show “The Bear” on FX? How realistic do you feel it is to the restaurant industry?

It’s definitely relatable, but it kinda reminds me of restaurant life maybe 10 or 15 years ago. I think the restaurant culture has shifted and changed a lot. In general I think theirs more balance than their used to be.

Moving on to Soul & Smoke. I spot you and your husband, D’Andre on TV all the time and I see you guys working tons of events. You guys are doing amazing! At what point in your mind did you feel like you made it?

Coming soon… Soul and Smoke Evanston location

OMG I don’t know if we have. We’re so excited to be opening our first real restaurant in Evanston this year. At times I still feel like we’re operating in pandemic mode. When the pandemic hit we were still 100% catering and doing to go and carry out. Having a real restaurant, will be able to book private parties and do so much more. Things drastically changed when the tribune article with Nick Kindelsperger review came out in 2021. All of a sudden everyone knew about us. When we would go somewhere people would say…”oh we saw you in that tribune article.” We had lines for weeks after that article.

I know you do behind the scenes work for Let’s Talk Womxn Chi. Can you tell us a little bit about the organization and the role you play?

I’m one of the cohosts and an ambassador. The organization as a whole helps women restauranteurs elevate each others brands. We use each other as sounding boards and we get together every month to go over engaging topics. It’s like a collective. My favorite thing about the organization is helping to plan events. I also help onboard new restaurant owners.

I want to segway over to the topic of mental health. We as women are always helping our partners and sometimes we let our own dreams fall to the wayside. You’re a successful entrepreneur and you manage to balance multiple facets of life. Are there any passion projects you’re working on right now or you want to work on in the future?

Oh wow! One thing I know I would like to get more involved with is Abundance Setting. It’s Chef Beverly Kim non profit to help working mothers advance in the restaurant industry. I love the idea of trying to help come up with solutions around child care with working moms. I would love to be more involved for sure.

The next question has always been such a controversial subject. You guys have decided to be pioneers and to get rid of tipping. Can you expand more on that?

It’s currently working well. We add an eight percent service charge to every bill and we don’t have an additional tip line. I feel that’s what really worked for us. When you gave an additional tip line then there’s all sorts of questions. Eight percent works for us because that’s about how much our servers were receiving for gratuity at our counter service spot. With the new restaurant will look into possibly adjusting it. The service fee is distributed to all of our employees from delivery drivers, to dish washers, to the kitchen team, and cashiers based on the number of hours worked each week.

Moving on to a hard question. What has been one of your favorite collaborative experiences to date? 

This is a hard one! Probably one of my favorites was a collab we did with Ramen-San. We did a featured Yakamein ramen (pork and chicken broth, smoked brisket, braised collard greens, creole butter, scallion, and marinated egg). It was featured on the menu all month long. It was such a great experience. We love working with Lettuce Entertain You. We brought the girls to the collab dinner and it was just so much fun.

I saved an easy question for last… Why do you love Chicago?

Summertime especially, but there’s no city prettier, there’s no city better. The chicago restaurant community is amazing. There’s nothing like it. We’re the best food city in the world.

I definitely want to thank Heather and ALL the amazing women out here doing what we do with such grace, elegance, and style.
Happy International Women’s Day!