“Wood On the Rise” for Chef Kevin Levine at Scatori’s

Last year, The Surge featured Chef Kevin Levine in a story called “Hashtags and Hollandaise” – a look at the impact of Instagram on the culinary world. At one point, Levine worked for and was trained by the iconic chef Emeril Lagasse. He can be seen plying his skills nightly at Scatori’s Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant in Myrtle Beach, where is executive chef.

Instagram, he said, is still making in impact on business at Scatori’s – so much so that he will host his third Instagram Chef’s Dinner on April 27.

But Levine and wife/business partner Stephanie Ott have embarked on a new venture called Hot Bloxx, which promises to bring wood to the forefront.

Hot Bloxx [www.hotbloxx.net] is all about custom cutting boards – all hand-made by Levine, using various species of exotic woods.

“Wood cutting boards are back,” he said, adding that he has made and sold nearly 40 pieces in less than 3 months.

The plan was to use a wood called Purpleheart to start with, but there was a sourcing snag in Guyana, where much of it is grown.

“People started asking about other types of wood, so we started researching online and got our first shipment from Washington State and sold that out,” said Ott. “Then we got something from Arizona. We’re basically outsourcing from different companies depending on the type of wood that people are ordering.”

The first few pieces were made out of bamboo, but eventually they were able to source the Purpleheart as well.

“I was literally using a rotating hand saw and a little teeny-tiny saw to cut all of my wood. That’s all I had in my garage at the time,” said Levine.

A regular at Scatori’s came to the rescue, donating a table saw and a band saw for use in the new venture. And this enabled Levine to pick up the pace.

“I kicked Stephanie’s car out of the garage and I turned the garage into a sawdust playground,” he said.

This from a man who had no experience in woodworking. But Levine is tenacious.

“I did a lot of research and watched a lot of YouTube. I am still on a lot of cutting board business pages, and I don’t like what they produce.”

Of course there was a learning curve at play here.

“The first one looked pretty decent, but I couldn’t sell it for $200. I still have the first one here.”

They shipped the third cutting board to customers in Florence, who recently came to dinner at Scatori’s and had Levine sign it.

Hot Bloxx now has a warehouse space, but Levine said he and Ott run the business out of their home.

“We are basically an online sales company of homemade butcher blocks,” he said – and has now produced pieces from maple, the aforementioned bamboo and Purpleheart and a high-density, sustainable wood called wamara.

Levine said customers include foodies, home cooks, executive chefs and owners of catering companies. Each board carries the Hot Bloxx logo, laser-engraved by Seaboard Signs.

“We are in nine cities in the United States, and I’m producing boards for chefs in Seoul, South Korea, Brazil and Germany.” During the process of our interview with Levine, he took a call from a chef in the Netherlands as well.

Hot Bloxx cutting boards are on display at Scatori’s.

“This is just the beginning for us,” he said.

Levine is slated to appear on the Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen” on Easter Sunday, March 27 – a development that he and his wife kept mum until they recently announced it on social media.

“I have applied numerous time to numerous different shows, and I even made it as far as Skype interviews,” he said. “This past May, I had another Skype interview for “Cutthroat Kitchen” – and they called me back, telling me they wanted me to appear.”

He said he signed masses of paperwork and they flew him to Los Angeles.

“Steph came with me, and I taped in L.A. in August. When I left L.A. they said, ‘Don’t forget the paperwork you signed. You are not allowed to saw a word. Nobody knew.”

Indeed, everybody thought they were on vacation or doing a catering event out West.

“Months went by, and I am like ‘Holy shit – when am I going to be able to say anything.’ Well, the Friday I got the email. I looked at my phone and started screaming, ‘I’m going to be on the Food Network!’”

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 12:15 AM with the headline "“Wood On the Rise” for Chef Kevin Levine at Scatori’s."