Photo by Caitlin Abrams
chef jack in the kitchen
You can be prepared, and wrecked at the same time.
Our Jack Riebel passed away surrounded by loved ones on Monday morning at dawn, after a long and open journey with cancer. He recently handed the pass at The Lex over to Nick O’Leary, and that was the final move in a massively important culinary career that included the original Butcher & the Boar, Il Foro, Half-Time Rec, The Dakota, La Belle Vie, and Goodfellows.
I want you to understand that no one had an impact on our local food scene like chef Jack did, because he had a different kind of power. His influence didn’t come from awards or national attention (which he also had), but a very specific energy that radiated out from him: because he always knew who he was. It was a light and energy that he gave away generously to anyone who was open to receiving it. That’s all you had to do: hold his bright blue gaze, listen to his laugh, clasp a meaty handshake, and receive. It didn’t matter who you were, dignitary, jazz legend, bartender, or guest, if you were open to Jack he gave you everything he had.
Because on the inside, it’s never really about restaurants and it’s not about a plate of food: it’s about the flow of humanity.
It’s why, over the next few days, you will see countless posts about Jack and how he changed people. Pay attention to all the Riebelisms, and why we know them. I honestly can’t think of another chef or restaurant owner who has that power, who has meant so much to so many. Not bad for a kid from the mean streets of St. Paul who dropped out of high school at age 15.
Jack and I became good friends more than a decade ago when we’d meet for post-shift gossip sessions in the dark basement bar of the King and I, when it was near Loring Park. God he loved to talk shop, we could waste hours just drilling down on what we thought people were pulling in for sales, how they were wasting labor, and who we thought was about to jump ship for another gig. It wasn’t sport, well, … it was sport. But it was the currency of his life, he never took one bit of it for granted, nor did he believe that he had risen above any of it. He valued everything, from working a grill shift for a friend’s restaurant to being named in fancy lists, from eating at the finest spots to sharing the many meals friends made for him: it was of equal importance. This industry coursed through him, giving as much to him as he to it.
When we knew that things were not going to go his way, he shared that energy with us too. In the last few months, we all watched him publicly say the things that needed to be said in post after post, showing his gratitude for the life he’d created. He and his beloved wife Kathryne took trips, visited friends, ate well, and welcomed visitors on an epic farewell tour. If you were open to it, he was teaching us, even then. Don’t be afraid to say the things. See your legacy in your people. Be solidly human. Live with #OneLove.
I loved Jack and I will miss my friend. I will miss his honesty and his generosity and his volume of voice, his volume of life. I will miss his fast-talking ways, and those sentences that ended with a half-cocked grin, egging you on. Part of what’s hard for me, is that I felt that energy wrapping around me in whichever space we shared, whether it was on a deck, at a bar, in a kitchen, or standing in the parking lot not realizing that an hour had passed since we both said we'd had to go. I can’t believe I don’t get to have that safety net anymore. I hate that the world is so much quieter today.
There’s a space that can’t be filled. There was no one like Jack Riebel, and I don’t know if there ever will be again. How lucky we’ve been to be here in the Riebel era.
Many of us think it’s fitting that he passed at dawn. A new day. A new journey. Aloha, chef. #onelove.
In lieu of flowers, the family invites people to please donate to the Jack Riebel Memorial Culinary Scholarship fund at St. Paul College.
