Billy Dec
These days, the guy who was once Chicago’s most recognized nightlife entrepreneur just wants to talk about his lawn.
“I wish you could see it,” Billy Dec says, speaking from the back deck of the home he bought in Nashville, Tenn., last year, which offers frequent sightings of deer and wild turkeys. “It’s so peaceful.”
Peace is another of Dec’s preferred topics, two months after he split with his Rockit Ranch Productions co-founder, Brad Young. The pair, who have known each other since the late ’90s, are responsible for many of the mainstays of Chicago’s celeb-studded River North bar scene of the late aughts: Rockit Bar & Grill, Sunda and the Underground, plus long-gone Rush Street club Le Passage.
The Rockit breakup wasn’t acrimonious, nor was it because the company’s ventures have faded since their glitzy heydays, Dec says. It was because he was burned out. “I’ve been grinding for so long and I just want to focus on what’s important to me,” he says. “Aligning yourself with what you’re passionate about not only creates competitive advantage, but creates more happiness and restfulness and peacefulness.”
For Dec, that means doubling down on Sunda, the pan-Asian restaurant that debuted on Illinois Street in 2009 and opened a Nashville outlet last spring. He wants to keep expanding Sunda’s Asian cuisine in markets beyond Chicago, while pursuing a long-standing interest in acting and talk-show hosting—while leveraging Rockit Ranch’s 15-year-old infrastructure into a professional consulting firm offering HR and marketing services to the hospitality industry.
It seems that peace—or at least rest—may remain elusive.
Dec, whose mother is Filipino, says he’s visited family in Southeast Asia every other year since he was a baby, but only recently fully embraced the culture. After buying out Young’s stake in both Sunda locations, he wants to take the concept to multiple cities. He’s also producing a documentary series that features him traveling and eating his way through the Philippines a la Anthony Bourdain. Shooting starts in Manila in January. “It wasn’t about getting out of Rockit; it was about the ability to invest more in a brand that I’ve been living my whole life,” says Dec, who has long dabbled in acting, with small roles on “Empire” and “Criminal Minds.”
Friends attribute this tirelessness to a big heart. “Some seek celebrity for their own gratification,” says David Gilbert, a former National Restaurant Association and Cracker Barrel executive who helped Dec raise investment dollars for Sunda Nashville. “Billy uses it to help his businesses but also causes he believes in. He’s an authentic, deep sort of family guy.”
Five Chicago associates, four of whom decline to comment on the record, scoff at that description, while acknowledging his genius for promotion. “Billy’s vision was very successful for a long period of time,” says a former employee who worked for Rockit Ranch Productions for five years and who requested anonymity. “He was one of the first wave to bring bottle-service nightclubs to Chicago and really shaped River North as the entertainment district of the city. But to be perfectly honest, it became more about him than about the brand or the company. And when you let your ego cloud your perception, you’re going to have an issue no matter what your business is.”
Over the course of a three-hour interview, Dec careens from his Asian heritage and Sunda’s expansion to his work on President Barack Obama’s advisory committee on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders and a series of videos about sexual harassment he filmed with his BFF, “Friends” actor David Schwimmer, that played on Chicago taxi TV last year. He’s also launched a production company, Elston Films, that will shoot its first movie, a journalism drama called “Bury the Lead,” this spring in Chicago. And he makes occasional appearances on the “Today” show as a food contributor.
This propensity to get excited about a wide range of ideas and issues is part of his charm—but also, he recognizes, a challenge in maintaining what he’s built. “My advisers told me, ‘You’re awesome, but you’re all over the place,’ ” which he says is why he decided to separate from his partners and focus on Sunda.
That ADD-tinged ambition can be traced to some of Rockit Ranch’s failures, including Ay Chiwowa, a casual Mexican eatery on Chicago Avenue that didn’t last long despite possessing a coveted 4 a.m. liquor license, as well as its equally ill-fated successor, Otto Mezzo, an “Italian cocktail” spot that closed after six months. There was also Bottlefork, Dec’s attempt to go high-end by partnering with former Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons Chicago chef Kevin Hickey, which shuttered last year after Hickey broke ties with Rockit Ranch to independently run the Duck Inn, his Bridgeport restaurant. (Hickey did not respond to a request to comment.)
Whether the culprit is ego, distraction or merely the passage of time, many of Rockit Ranch’s properties need a refresh. Rockit Bar & Grill, now owned solely by Young, reopened in August after going dark for eight months. Young, who declines to comment, acknowledged to Eater Chicago that the flagship River North burger spot had strayed from its “original DNA” during a 2015 makeover that introduced edgier decor and courted high-end chefs. “Now we want to get back to the neighborhood bar and grill that people come to for lunch,” he told the site.
Meanwhile, Underground—the subterranean nightclub at Dearborn and Illinois streets that used to pack in notables from Kanye West and Jamie Foxx to Patrick Kane and Ben Roethlisberger, plus nationally renowned DJs—is 12 years old. Dec, who retains ownership of the club, brought back former partner Arturo Gomez to determine its next iteration.
Gomez, who says Underground’s business “remains healthy but could be healthier,” adds that he and Dec are “still sifting through” what renovations will look like. The club, which last received a face-lift six years ago, will close for six months late this year.
“In terms of how people are consuming entertainment these days, that’s the million-dollar question,” he says, acknowledging that newly minted drinking-age customers aren’t dressing up, spending on bottle service or even leaving their homes. “These are people who can order in food, liquor and dates from their phones.” It doesn’t help that Dec, who for so long was the hat-wearing face of the brand, is today a 45-year-old husband and father.
The biggest threat to both Underground and Sunda, however, is located a few blocks down Dearborn. It’s called Tao. The over-the-top Asian restaurant and nightclub, a long-standing celeb favorite in Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles, debuted its Chicago outpost Sept. 17, complete with an appearance by Kourtney Kardashian and lots of press coverage.
The fact that the “clubsturant” focuses as much on dining as on the late-night DJ scene presents a challenge to Sunda, which some say was a well-executed rip-off of Tao in the first place. Sunda Chicago continues to be a moneymaker, bringing in an estimated $12 million in revenue last year, but isn’t among the city’s restaurant juggernauts. And Tao’s existing operations in other top dining markets present a problem as Dec looks to grow Sunda. As the former Rockit Ranch employee puts it: “Where’s he going to go next? Cincinnati?” Dec won’t name other markets he’s eyeing but says Tao’s success shows there are “huge opportunities” for more pan-Asian restaurants.
Still, even Dec skeptics acknowledge that he’s built a successful multimillion-dollar nightlife empire that has employed thousands of Chicagoans for years in a notoriously tumultuous industry. That bodes well for his consulting service, which he says is still in the early stages. “My eyes were opened to the struggle of keeping up with HR rules in the hospitality industry,” he says, adding that while the #MeToo era has brought increased accountability, the alcohol-soaked nature of the business creates ongoing problems.
Though he listed his Lincoln Park mansion for nearly $3 million last year (it never sold and is now off the market) and moved his family, mother and a handful of business associates to Nashville, Dec says he continues to spend several days a week here.
Nashville might just not be big enough to contain him, expansive lawns notwithstanding.
More: How Chicago chefs are turning Nashville into one of the hottest foodie destinations in the U.S.
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