By Kira Golden
Jack Srebnik, 60, owns some of the Valley’s favorite restaurants, including The Slice, JT’s Diner, and Maracas. He recently opened a new restaurant, called bb’s at The River, which is sure to be an exciting new hot spot to visit before going to see a movie. Srebnik was born and raised in New York and attended Alfred University in upstate New York. He showed his penchant for entrepreneurship early on, explaining that his very first job was creating his own lawn business in his teens. However, he didn’t get started in the restaurant industry until 1983, after the basketball team he was coaching won their championship, and the father of one of the players offered him a job at Cisco Food Service. “I guess if we hadn’t won that game, I wouldn’t be in this business!” he joked. Six years later, he opened his first restaurant, 17th Street Café in Santa Monica, which he ran for 25 years before selling it last year. That was the most defining moment in his career, he said. “Taking the plunge and just doing it—opening my own business. That was a big moment for me.” He went on to say that the new restaurant at the River will, in fact, have the same menu and the same executive chef as the 17th Street Café. bb’s will be the seventeenth restaurant that he’s opened. Some of those he has since sold—he still has six that he owns and runs himself. One of them, The Slice, was voted by Yelp to be the top Italian restaurant in the Coachella Valley and the 3rd favorite restaurant overall.
“I’m very into giving back,” Srebnik said. “I live a wonderful life and I want to help as many people achieve their goals as I can.” He serves on the Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and for the Rancho Mirage Chamber of Commerce. He holds a leadership role for the newly founded Rancho Mirage Restaurant Association. He credits his father with instilling in him his strong moral fiber. “He was hard-working, but never stopped being family-oriented. Family comes first.” He is inspired by people who are positive about what they do. “I love to see people working hard and loving it. We don’t live long enough to be doing things we don’t love.” He leads by example, saying how much he loves people and his business, and is driven to success by his competitive nature.
His other passion, in keeping with his love of helping people realize their dreams, is coaching. He has coached Palm Valley High School’s basketball team for the last twenty years. “I’ve played and coached basketball my whole life,” he explained. “I’m a Clippers season ticket holder,” he laughed. He also enjoys watching football, and roots for his home team—The New York Jets. Aside from sports, he enjoys going out to movies—especially anything with Michael Keaton, as the two are good friends. “I also love to eat,” he said, laughing. “I’m not sure if that counts as a hobby but I love it.” He loves to have music on and his tastes are across the board—from The Three Irish Tenors to Pitbull to Frank Sinatra. His favorite place to visit is the island of Maui in Hawaii, but it’s on his bucket list to go to Italy someday. “Something most people don’t know about me,” he said, “is that as outgoing as I seem to them, I’m shy. When I’m at the restaurant, it’s like I’m onstage and stuff, but I do have that shyness inside of me.”
Going forward, Srebnik’s goals are mostly to continue on as he has been doing. “I want my kids to have the lifestyle I have. I hope in a few years to pass my businesses down to my boys, but I’m never going to retire. My dad retired when he was 80 years old and he was dead six months later. I don’t have to work that hard—I work a lot of hours, ask anyone, but I don’t have to. I’m there because I want to be.” He wants to help everyone he works with, his staff, and his family, live the life they dream about, the way that he has. “It came with hard work,” he said. “But it is a wonderful life.”
