‘Southern Hospitality’ Leva Explains How Her Restaurants Survived the Pandemic – ‘We Took It Seriously’ [Exclusive]
Bravo‘s Southern Hospitality restaurant and club owner Leva Bonaparte from Southern Charm said Republic or Bourbon N’ Bubbles didn’t become a casualty of the pandemic because they acted and moved quickly – although she admits it was a rough and expense-draining ride.
Bravo viewers will go behind the velvet rope at Republic with Bonaparte’s new show Southern Hospitality. “The series follows Southern Charm resident boss-lady, Leva Bonaparte, as she manages Charleston’s very own ‘it crowd, otherwise known as her larger-than-life staff at Republic Garden & Lounge,” according to Bravo. “Leva and husband Lamar own four restaurants along the city’s famous King Street, but Republic is the crown jewel of their kingdom. The hottest nightclub and backdrop for Charleston’s lively party scene, Republic is the place to go for pleasure, business or both.”
‘Southern Hospitality’ is a sweet rebound from the pandemic for Leva Bonaparte
The wild party scene filmed for Southern Hospitality is an extreme contrast to what Leva Bonaparte faced in 2020. “There was never a moment where I didn’t think that we would make it,” she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet about the initial months of the pandemic. “But I definitely was like, this is going to be a big life setback.”
“We were very shrewd in the beginning,” she recalled. “Taking emotion out of it. We were like, it’s not sustainable to deliver food. It’s not sustainable to keep all this staff on. So we just immediately laid everyone off. And in the meanwhile, we did a GoFundMe for the interim of like getting on unemployment. And then we just ran the place super skeleton.”
The restaurant owners took the pandemic seriously
Southern Charm cameras followed Bonaparte, her husband, and partners trying to determine the best path to take during the early days of the pandemic shutdown.
“So I think that’s what saved us, whereas a lot of people didn’t take it seriously and were like, ‘We’ll do this and it’ll be OK in two weeks.’ And we were like, no and we shut down a bunch of restaurants,” she said. “And so I think that’s what saved us. But also, we were not making enough money to pay the staff who we did have. So it was just dipping into savings to make sure that everyone was good. “
“And there was a lot of people who reached out and we were just like, ‘Money for you, money for you!’ Just to make sure everyone’s OK. It’s like we blacked out,” she admitted. “And then we just went back a year later and we were like, ‘Whoa, that was just a very, very expensive thing that we were not prepared for.’ And it set us back. But we made it.”
Leva shares another reason why her ‘Southern Hospitality’ restaurants survived
She also said despite being on Bravo, she doesn’t have superfluous expenses like a glam squad. “We’re only in our 40s, but we’ve always sort of lived very beneath our means,” she shared. “We’re not overly leveraged and as you want to be on Bravo and wear all the fanciest things and have all the bags and all the cars and everything, we really try to be adamant that we are our own backup plan.”
Staying grounded is how this restauranteur survived. “So we can’t just be so overly leveraged that God forbid, if something happens, we’re not able to dip into things. So that’s really why we survived,” she said.
Bravo’s Southern Hospitality definitely shows how Leva Bonaparte and her restaurants not only managed to survive but thrive. The Southern Hospitality party starts on Monday, Nov. 28 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
