The Funky Biscuit – Albert Poliak

The Funky Biscuit – Albert Poliak

By: Lori Smerilson Carson  |  Photos: Chris Schmitt

When you serve truly delicious food and an amazing selection of drinks, then top it off with extraordinarily excellent music, you have The Funky Biscuit. Originally opening its doors as a live music venue and restaurant/bar in 2011, this relaxing place is now getting ready to celebrate fourteen years of success and great memories for a lot of people living or visiting in the Boca Raton area. Now, during the week of July 21st through July 27^th, Floridians can experience the musical festivities that will be taking place to mark this milestone.

Taking the time to explain the details, Owner Albert Poliak revealed some elements about the upcoming events, the artists involved, some interesting facts about the club and restaurant, and what Florida patrons can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: What should our readers look forward to with the upcoming anniversary of The Funky Biscuit?

Albert Poliak: Oh, my goodness! Well, it is our fourteen-year anniversary. This year we are fortunate to be able to feature actually three different artists and groups.  July 23^rd and 24^th we have Trouble No More. While there are numerous Allman Brothers tribute bands, that’s actually the only Allman Brothers tribute band that is sort of officially, I don’t know if you want to call it sanctioned (he laughed). We’ll just say, officially kind of recognized by the Allman Brothers organization. They actually are allowed to promote on their social media pages, and they support it, and it’s the same management that managed the Allman Brothers, so it features a really great all-star lineup. Of course, Brandon Niederauer (guitarist/vocalist) is in the band. His brother Dylan (bassist) is in the band. Lamar Williams Jr. (vocalist), Peter Levin on keys who was Gregg Allman’s piano player, keyboard player in the Gregg Allman Band. Peter’s out there doing some great things with a bunch of different people now. Quinn Sullivan on guitar who is also an up-and-coming young guitarist to see.  So that’s great! We’re looking forward to that. That’s Wednesday the 23^rd and Thursday the 24^th. Then we’ve got Rich and Tess in Twocan Blue coming in for a Friday Happy Hour which is always a lot of fun. Then Friday and Saturday night, the 25^th and 26^th we’ve got Brandon Niederauer coming in with his band and that’s really exciting as well. Brandon Niederauer just graduated From Yale (University).

SFL Music Magazine: Wow!

Poliak: I know, it’s incredible! I’ve known him since I think he was fourteen or something. He just graduated from Yale, and he’s been sort of keeping up with his musical career during his time at Yale, but now he’s got a record deal. I don’t know if it’s necessarily been announced. He’s got a new single coming out. I just saw that pop up on social media. So, I think there’s some really cool, new, different things coming from Brandon that people are going to see here over the next few weeks leading up to him coming to the Biscuit. I was joking with his dad. I said, what a fallback plan. If he can’t make it in the music business, you get to call all your buddies down on Wall Street for a job (he laughed). It’s like, what a fallback plan! He’s just a wonderful young man. Both him and his brother. Then Sunday, funday we actually have a jazz show. Steve Oliver is coming in for a 5:30 and an 8:30, two shows on Sunday the 27^th. So that sort of rounds off and finishes off our anniversary week. Pretty exciting stuff!  Looking forward to that week. Yeah, fourteen years!

SFL Music Magazine: That’s amazing! You’ve had all types of artists from Rick Derringer to Kofi Baker, Ana Popović, Mike Zito, Albert Castiglia, Jason Bieler, Jeff Scott Soto and Vanessa Collier. What prompted you to open The Funky Biscuit?

Poliak: Well, that’s sort of two questions. I didn’t really have a desire to open a concert venue/restaurant bar, what have you. I played a show there before I opened it. It was a college bar. I did a private event there with a band that I helped start. A band called The Long Run. It’s still out there. It still exists. It was a great sounding room, and someone told me the folks that were in there, were having a tough time and maybe looking to get rid of the lease. At the time I was thinking about making a career change or whatever. So, I decided to open it up, but it wasn’t some dream of mine or desire to get in this business, that’s for sure! The name again, that was sort of by accident also. I wanted to come up with a name that involved both music and food. While I did take the recommendations and advice of many, many different people including my daughters, I actually came up with the name Funky Biscuit and wasn’t sure if it had been taken. So, I googled it and the first thing that came up was this Urban Dictionary definition, and I’ll be really honest with you. Back in 2011, I didn’t even know what an Urban Dictionary was, ok (he laughed)? I do now. It’s a pretty common place thing, but I looked it up and it said the definition was a beat or a bassline that rocks the membranes of your brain. Gives you a feeling of hedonism and ecstasy and puts a smile on your face. I was like, oh yeah, that’s us! So, because it said a beat or a baseline, I went ahead and submitted some ideas to the graphic artist. It involved a bass clef which you can see on our logo now. Man, he whipped something together pretty quickly! We had our name. We had our logo, and we were up running pretty quick!

SFL Music Magazine: When I interviewed Mindi Abair, she mentioned the biscuits. So, when I saw her show that she played there last December, I tried the biscuits, and they were the best I’ve ever eaten! How did that come about? Do you have family recipes?

Poliak: No. Honestly, most of the recipes initially were my recipes. I come from a family of great chefs and cooks. My mother is Greek and Lebanese, so the cooking on that side of that family was ridiculous. My dad, Poliak is a Slavic name, yet there was Italian in the family. So, my father was a great cook also. I learned how to cook very, very young. My mom let me in the kitchen in elementary school by myself which I would never have let my kids in the kitchen in elementary school (he laughed). They would have burned the house down!

SFL Music Magazine: You must have shown a lot of promise!

Poliak: Yeah. So, a lot of those were my recipes but honestly, the head chef that runs our kitchen now, Edmond, I’ve known him gosh, definitely twenty-five years. I’ve been through a bunch of different chefs and kitchen managers, what have you, and I just begged him over the years because he’s been with me since the beginning, but he just never would take over the kitchen because he’s a super, super hard worker. He works two jobs. He’s got a 6 am gig that he does. Finally, after all these years, he finally took over the kitchen and the food and the operations back there have never been better. I’m just thrilled with it! Yeah, it’s great!

SFL Music Magazine: Yes, the food is amazing, and the staff is wonderful! You also have Wine Down Wednesday and featured shows. Was there anything else that you want people to know or look forward to?

Poliak: I think that we are really grateful that we’ve been here fourteen years and we’re looking forward to the next fourteen. We appreciate everybody’s support at the Biscuit. It’s not an easy business. It takes a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, a lot of energy and I can go on and on, but the thing that keeps it going are people supporting it and the patronage to the place. We hope that people will continue to do that and show up and support our anniversary week which really starts on Monday night with The Funky Biscuit All Stars. Monday, The Funky Biscuit All Stars are the main act. We have a featured artist every week and that week it’s Tyrone Robinson. He works on the staff at The Funky Biscuit. Yeah, one time got up there and sang with the band and we were like, wait a minute, you can actually sing! He’s been up there three times, maybe four times and I said, well, why don’t you just work something out with Richie who is the musical director in the All Star band and become the featured artist on a Monday night. So, he’s kicking it off the 21^st with the All Stars and doing a set, Tyrone Robinson, and then we have Crazy Fingers on the 22^nd and of course I just went over the rest of the week with you, Wednesday through Sunday. So, it’s a super busy week. Can’t wait!