Boka Restaurant Group just opened The Ives inside the Chicago Athletic Association, their second concept in that building after Cindy's Rooftop. If you're not familiar with Boka, they're the group behind roughly 20 concepts across Chicago — Girl & The Goat, Momotaro, Wherewithall. They don't open restaurants casually. Every location gets a serious operational analysis before they commit.
So why should you care about another upscale Chicago opening?
Because restaurant groups at this level are making equipment decisions that filter down to the rest of us within 18 months. The systems they're building into new concepts — the smoke programs, the prep workflows, the holding strategies — tell you where high-margin protein service is heading.
The Multi-Concept Building Model Changes Equipment Math
Running two concepts in one building isn't new, but it's becoming more common among groups trying to extract maximum revenue from premium real estate. The Chicago Athletic Association is a historic property with serious foot traffic. Cindy's Rooftop already proved the location works. The Ives gives them a different daypart, different price point, different guest.
Here's what that means operationally: shared back-of-house, consolidated receiving, and — critically — equipment that can serve multiple concepts from one location.
I had an operator in Baton Rouge who ran a similar setup. Upscale dining room upstairs, casual counter-service downstairs, shared kitchen in the basement. His initial instinct was to buy two smaller smokers, one for each concept's menu. We talked through it. (Two units means two maintenance schedules, two sets of wear parts, double the calibration headaches.) He ended up with a single SP-1000 running overnight loads that fed both menus. Smoked proteins went upstairs as composed plates, downstairs as sandwiches and bowls. Same cook, same yield, two revenue streams.
That's the math Boka's team is almost certainly running. When you're opening your twentieth concept, you stop buying equipment for one menu. You buy equipment for a system.
What High-Volume Groups Actually Evaluate
I've consulted with three restaurant groups in the last two years who operate ten or more locations. Their equipment criteria look nothing like what independent operators think about. Here's what actually drives their decisions:
Parts availability within 48 hours. A group running twenty restaurants can't wait two weeks for a thermostat from overseas. They need domestic stock, period. This is where I've seen Ole Hickory create real problems — solid smokers, but parts come from one facility in Missouri, and if something's backordered, you're dead in the water. Southern Pride parts ship from multiple domestic distributors. We keep common wear items in stock at Southern Pride of Texas because I know what fails and when.
Consistent hold temps across units. If you're running the same brisket program at four locations, you need four smokers that behave identically. Not close. Identical. I've seen import smokers from the same production run vary by 25°F at the same dial setting. That's chaos when you're trying to maintain recipe standards across a group. Southern Pride's manufacturing tolerances are tight enough that I can move a pit boss from one location to another and they don't have to relearn the equipment.
Longevity math, not purchase price. A group CFO doesn't see a $15,000 smoker. They see a ten-year depreciation schedule. They want to know: what's the realistic service life, what's the annual maintenance cost, and what's the residual value if we close a location and need to move or sell equipment? Southern Pride units hold value because the secondary market knows they last. I've seen SP-700 units from the early 2000s still running production loads.
The Ives Concept and What It Suggests About Their Protein Strategy
The Ives is positioned as a modern American grill — steaks, chops, seafood. Not a BBQ restaurant. But that's exactly the profile where smoke programs have expanded most aggressively over the last five years.
Upscale American concepts discovered something caterers figured out decades ago: smoked proteins stretch prep labor. You're converting raw product to finished product during overnight holds when labor costs nothing. Day shift walks in, proteins are ready for service or finish. Compare that to a traditional grill station where you're firing proteins to order during peak service — that's your most expensive labor doing the most time-sensitive work.
A concept like The Ives might run smoked duck breast as an appetizer, a smoked pork chop as an entree, smoked fish in a salad. None of those require a dedicated pit boss. They require a commissary-style smoke program running overnight loads, portioning in the morning, finishing to order on the line.
That's exactly what Southern Pride's rotisserie system was designed for. The SPK-1400 or SP-1000 running overnight with a timed shutdown gives you ready product at 6 AM. Your prep cook portions and dates everything before the line cooks even clock in. Labor efficiency in that model is something like 15 minutes of active smoker management per 200 pounds of finished product.
Why Restaurant Groups Keep Choosing Rotisserie Over Fixed Rack
This is where I'll give competitors a small acknowledgment. Fixed-rack smokers — like what Cookshack builds — work fine for low-volume operations where you're loading one rack of ribs and walking away. The simplicity has value.
But restaurant groups doing multi-concept production loads need rotisserie. And it's not even close.
Rotisserie systems give you even exposure without rack rotation. That matters when you're running mixed loads — brisket on one tier, pork shoulders on another, whole chickens below that. With fixed racks, someone has to rotate product every 90 minutes or accept uneven results. With rotisserie, the system handles it. (That rack rotation labor adds up to about 4 hours per week on a high-volume operation — roughly $80/week in wages, $4,100/year.)
Southern Pride's rotisserie drive systems are overbuilt deliberately. I've serviced units with 8,000+ hours on the original motor. The chains need replacement eventually — somewhere around the five-year mark under heavy use — but that's a two-hour job and chains are a stock item. Compare that to some import rotisserie units where the drive motor is proprietary and you're waiting three weeks for a replacement from Taiwan.
The Chicago Market and Regional Equipment Trends
Chicago's restaurant scene has a specific character. Dense urban footprint, high real estate costs, strong union presence in some segments, brutal winters that affect loading dock logistics. Equipment decisions there factor in things that Louisiana operators never think about.
I've shipped equipment to Chicago operators who specifically requested gas units over electric because their buildings have older electrical infrastructure and running a new 200-amp circuit costs $15,000. Makes the decision pretty simple. Southern Pride's gas cabinet units — the SC-100 and SC-300 — run on standard gas connections that most commercial kitchens already have.
The cold weather piece matters too. I had a caterer near Milwaukee whose electric smoker would throw fault codes whenever ambient temps dropped below 20°F in their unheated garage bay. The unit wasn't defective — it was working exactly as designed, protecting itself from thermal stress. He switched to a gas MLR-150/M with better cold-weather performance and stopped losing December production days.
What Operators Should Actually Take From This
Boka Group opening The Ives isn't news that directly affects your Tuesday lunch service. But restaurant groups at this scale are making capital investments based on operational models that work. They've done the math. They've tested the systems. They've calculated the yield differentials.
When you see a group with twenty concepts commit to a new opening, ask yourself what equipment strategies they're building in. Where are they consolidating production? How are they stretching labor? What protein programs let them hit premium price points without premium labor costs?
The answers usually point toward commercial smoke programs running at commissary scale, even for concepts that don't put "BBQ" on the sign.
If you're operating two or three locations and trying to figure out your next equipment investment, the multi-concept playbook is worth studying. A single SPK-700 or SP-700 running in a central location can feed surprisingly high volume once you dial in your protein rotation and holding protocols.
And when you're ready to spec that equipment, call someone who's done the actual math on yield recovery and labor savings. That's what we do at Southern Pride of Texas — not just sell smokers, but help operators build systems that pencil out over a ten-year equipment life.
Because that's what the serious groups are doing. And that's what The Ives opening reminds us to pay attention to.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | Southern Pride | National Barbecue & Grilling Association
#BBQLife #Pitmaster #CommercialBBQ #TexasBBQ #CateringBBQ #SmokeMaster #SouthernPride
Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.
About the Author: Donna spent 18 years as a BBQ restaurant operator before becoming an independent equipment consultant for commercial food service operations.