Bocz: Styling Or Dining, A Cut Above

It took Gary Bocz almost no time after opening Theoz to find the flaw in being a restaurant owner. People are too busy eating to talk.

For a man who taps into other people's emotions and energy, someone who is forever coming up with new ideas, that lack of exchange has been a little frustrating.

Bocz (pronounced Boze) is known in Seattle for the two hair salons that bear his name. When he teamed with Theodora van den Beld to open Theoz restaurant downstairs from his Sixth Avenue salon last fall, it was not as much of a departure for Bocz as it might seem.

There's very little about life that doesn't fascinate him. At 53, he's in no danger of being left behind.

"I think there's a sense in Seattle right now that there's as much happening here as there is anywhere in the country," said Bocz. "Simply by being here, you find yourself leading the way."

It was certainly true of the hair industry a quarter century ago when people like Bocz and Gene Juarez sent hair cutters out to be trained in fashion centers of the world, which gave Seattle the reputation of being a distinguished hair-cutting city.

The early influence of Nordstrom and, later, Seattle's music scene has kept Seattle fashion forward, Bocz said. Now that the software millionaires are out of their cubicles for the first time in a decade discovering art, food and clothing, the lid is off the limits.

There are some who say Bocz knows more about what's going on in

Seattle than anyone else.

Seattle's movers and shakers are held captive in his salon chair for 45 minutes to an hour three days a week, feeding his need to know how things work.

His clients keep current about fashion, city government, businesses, what's happening in the art world, and the emotional ups and downs of important and powerful lives.

Will he share? No, he won't. Which is why they share with him.

It's so addictive that Bocz can't give up cutting, he said, though running the salons and the restaurant now extends his workdays to as late as 10 or 11 at night.

How did this son of an Ellensburg logger get into this position and how does he juggle it all without burning out?

Bocz will say he hasn't come far: "Only a hundred miles or so."

And that it wasn't a difficult journey.

Three decades ago, he and Gene Juarez, the only other male enrolled in a Yakima beauty school, crossed the mountains from Eastern Washington in Bocz's 1951 Chevy. They had $90 between them and lived for a month in Seattle on canned goods sent along by Bocz's grandmother.

Juarez had a single vision. From the time he was 16, he knew he wanted to be "Mr. Hair" in Seattle. And that's what he's become. Later this year, he'll open his seventh and eighth Gene Juarez salons.

Bocz wasn't as focused. Though he figured out early that he didn't want to log or ranch, he started off in art. But fine art didn't pay, and sign painting didn't seem to be leading him anywhere.

Shortly after Jacqueline Kennedy's hair stylist made salon work an honorable profession for men, Bocz received a scholarship to a Yakima beauty school trying to attract male students.

Hooking up with Sassoon

He left school early to come to Seattle and then went to San Francisco, where he found work in an upscale salon and learned from a cutter trained by a new sensation: Vidal Sassoon.

But Bocz and his wife, Karen, a Moses Lake girl he married in 1964, returned to Seattle, where they had a better chance of buying a house.

The housing market was so good, in fact, the couple could buy a house, fix it up and sell it at a profit, earning capital for later ventures.

"Gary was always tinkering with something new," said Juarez, who meanwhile opened his first salon.

By appealing to Bocz's need for innovation, Juarez coaxed his old friend to leave another salon to come to work for him. Juarez was doing hair a new way. Up to that time, Juarez said, women had standing appointments a couple of times a week because they couldn't do their own hair, which was set in a 'do that lasted for days. The new styles could be blown dry at home. "I gave them their hair back," Juarez said.

Bocz opened his own salon a couple of years later, but he couldn't stand the solitude. So he closed it down and opened a bigger one.

It was not entirely surprising to his wife, who had been attracted to Bocz because he had big ideas and because he told her he was "very lucky." But Karen Bocz is more cautious. Her husband says her business sense is what got them through the first years.

"He had to convince me of a lot of things," she said.

Bocz has a true entrepreneurial spirit, according to his longtime business manager, Russ Iida, and that includes a willingness to take risks. About 25 percent of Bocz's ideas get ash-canned, Iida said, because they don't pencil out on paper.

"He's not a corporate-type person at all," said Iida. "He really rewards individuality and creativity. He needs to be on the edge."

Early on, Bocz sent his cutters to London for training. But domestic schools began to catch up, and the higher competency allowed Bocz to change what he looks for when he hires.

His first interest is personality. If he likes the stylist, there's a good chance his customers will, too. He looks for people who will be comfortable with all ages and who have a history of doing well as individuals within a larger group setting: swimmers or violinists, for example.

Once the stylists are trained, they're on their own. No team songs. Few staff meetings. He sees his job as supplying whatever they need to do their jobs more efficiently.

"I'm always here physically if there's some problem," Bocz said, "but as far as meddling in their day-to-day affairs, it never was important and it certainly isn't now."

Bocz finds a lot of similarities between the restaurant and salon.

The staffs are creative, artistic and people-oriented, he said. And, like him, they are driven by the constant change. In the salon the faces change with each appointment, and in the restaurant it's with every meal.

One of Bocz's strengths, and how he copes with stress, is his ability to focus wholly on the moment.

He became friends with his partner in Theoz when he had lunch every day for four years at Van den Beld's other Sixth Avenue establishment, Baci Catering and Restaurant. Van den Beld, who describes the food industry as notorious for its extroverts, said she was impressed by Bocz's integrity and calm.

Coming back with a solution

When the opening of Theoz hit some rough spots, Bocz never overreacted to the stress, she said. He would go for a ride on his motorcycle to cleanse his mind and then come back with a creative solution.

"From the day I met him until now, I am every day surprised by how he looks at things," said Van den Beld. "I always tap into his logic."

Bocz likes motorcycle riding because it demands all of his attention at that moment, especially through the city or over rugged roads.

Last year, Bocz rode his BMW motorcycle with a group from Denver to Panama. It was difficult travel made even more demanding when storms and Central American rebels wiped out many of the bridges, nearly doubling the mileage to 7,000.

His other hobbies - fly fishing, fencing, pen-and-ink drawing - also require an all-consuming attention if they're to be done well.

And so do the interactions with his hair salon customers.

"You may have an artist one moment, a scientist the next or someone involved with some horrible divorce the next," Bocz said. "You are dialed in for that moment on that one particular client."

Bocz admires people who are good at what they do. It's usually a short step for him between studying their efficiency and wanting to know how to do it himself.

When he wanted to become a better fly fisherman, he hired himself out as a guide so he could watch how people cast.

Some time in the kitchen

Now he has a whole new school. He's learning about mixing drinks and choosing wines, and he occasionally gets to work alongside Theoz' chef, Emily Moore, in the kitchen.

It was reported when Theoz opened that it was the fulfillment of a life dream for Bocz. He found that perplexing until a friend pointed out that he has so many dreams it could have been said about any one of them.

Theoz is about to expand upstairs, but the 30 additional seats may not make the business any more satisfying to Bocz.

An owner's presence is the soul of a business, according to Van den Beld. With a restaurant, the real skill is to have brief but meaningful conversations to let customers know you appreciate them.

Bocz is still struggling with that concept, and from time to time Van den Beld has to remind him:

"They are eating now, and you can't be sitting down with them."