SLUG Style: Michael McHenry

Michael McHenry, founder of the McHenry Group and self-proclaimed “concept gangster,” is responsible for restaurants like Sunday’s Best and Oak Wood Fire Kitchen. McHenry has a real passion for food and hospitality, looking to create more than just a brand name but memorable experiences. McHenry’s style inspirations are eclectic, drawing inspiration from rock and roll, streetwear and cowboy culture. 

What are your stylistic influences? This could be a band, decade, fictional character — anything.

I’ve never really thought about style as fashion. It’s more like an autobiography. There’s an elementary school photo of me wearing cut-off camo shorts, cowboy boots and a John Elway jersey. That probably tells you most of what you need to know. I’ve apparently been putting things together that weren’t necessarily supposed to go together my entire life.

My influences are a collision of where I came from and whatever I’m feeling right now. My grandfather was a professional trumpet player in big jazz, brass and swing bands. The other side of my family were cattle ranchers and excavators. My dad built classic cars. So somewhere in my DNA there’s a guy in a beautifully pressed pair of trousers drinking a martini in 1958 standing next to another guy in dirty Wranglers and cowboy boots. I love both of them.

Then layer in tattoos, rock and roll, streetwear, hospitality, cars, contemporary art, architecture, sneakers, cowboy culture, luxury and a little bit of fuck-you energy, and you’re probably getting closer. I’ve been wearing Chrome Hearts since 2003. I bought my first piece more than 20 years ago, long before the brand became what it is in popular culture today. I’ve always loved brands that have their own language and don’t need everybody to understand them.

I love what Austin Post is doing. Curriculum is one of my favorite men’s stores in Salt Lake City. Much love to Worn Wild too, they’re simply amazing and everyone needs to check them out! And I can find as much inspiration in some cool vintage piece as I can in something expensive. My tattoos are part of my style too. I gravitate toward traditional tattooing and a lot of what’s on my body represents maxims, beliefs, experiences and reminders. I like the idea that some of the things I believe most deeply aren’t hanging in my closet, they’re permanently written on me.

Same with getting my nails done. Style gets really interesting when you stop asking whether something is masculine enough, age appropriate enough or acceptable enough and just ask, Does this feel like me?

Right now, everything I own is also in danger of meeting a pair of scissors. I’m cropping tees, cutting sleeves and trimming pants. Give me a great pair of vintage jeans, press a hard crease into them, throw on a cropped tee and some badass cowboy boots or a polished loafer and I’m a happy camper.

Ralph Lauren said, “Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over quickly. Style is forever.” That’s it for me. Style is an inside out job. 

What is the McHenry group? What was the original inspiration behind its conception and how has it evolved since then?

The McHenry Group is an experiential concept creation company. Restaurants are our primary canvas but I don’t wake up thinking we’re in the business of selling pizza and pancakes. We’re in the business of making people feel something. Our mission is creating the most memorable experiences through our hospitality and craft and our charge is to forever challenge the industry status quo, one badass brand at a time. That’s the fun of it.

I’m obsessed with the collision of food, design, music, lighting, fashion, service, storytelling, energy and human behavior. Why does one room feel alive while another one doesn’t? Why does one brand become part of somebody’s identity while another is just somewhere they ate?

We’ve incubated and brought multiple brands to market and created thousands of jobs but what interests me now is pushing the idea of hospitality further. We’re entering an increasingly automated world. I’m not anti-technology, I love progress, but I am aggressively pro-human. People still want to be seen. They want to flirt! Laugh! Celebrate! Dress up! Screw up! Fall in love! Make a friend! Hear a great song! Eat something ridiculous! Sit across from somebody they care about and forget about their phone for an hour! Restaurants can still create that. That’s incredibly cool to me and I want to prove that some of the most culturally relevant hospitality brands in America can come out of Utah. 

Where does your passion for food and hospitality come from? What else are you passionate about that no one would realize?

Food was the entry point. People became my obsession. Nearly every important human experience somehow finds its way to a table like first dates, birthdays, celebrations, heartbreak, business deals, family traditions or reconciliation.

We get to build the stage where those things happen. That’s hospitality. Outside of that, I’m obsessed with human potential. I’ve spent the last several years doing an enormous amount of work physically, mentally and emotionally. The deeper I’ve gone into that work, the more I’ve realized that self-awareness eventually becomes stewardship.

At some point, you finally become a man you trust. A man you respect. You look in the mirror and genuinely love the person looking back at you. For me, the answer is that you have a responsibility to reach backward and invite other men forward. One of my best friends and I co-founded BroActive, a men’s mental health and wellness platform, around that belief. It’s free. There isn’t a product to sell. We’re creating environments and dialogue where men can get more honest, more connected and more intentional about the men they’re becoming. Strength and vulnerability aren’t opposites. Kindness and danger aren’t opposites either. I think a fully developed man has room for all of it.

Are you always “on” or would someone see you at the grocery store, for example, with fewer elements of your style?

You’ll absolutely catch me in sweats. But they’re probably good sweats. The elements change. The intention doesn’t. My casual uniform is usually athleisure because I like being ready. I’m 44 and physically I can do more today than I could through most of my adult life. I worked incredibly hard for my body and that freedom and I don’t take either for granted.

A huge part of being ready is being a Dad. My three daughters are my world. I have four-year-old twin girls, Veda and Vera, and my teenage daughter, Elle. Life with them can go from brunch to the park to a scooter ride to some completely unplanned adventure pretty quickly. I want a body and usually an outfit that can keep up. Style has actually become a pretty fun part of our family dynamic too. Elle raids my closet more often than she probably raids her Mom’s. I get a kick out of seeing her take something of mine and make it completely hers. And I may be biased but I’ve never met a better dressed set of twins! Dressing those two might legitimately qualify as one of my hobbies.

There’s definitely a McHenry family vibe. We have fun with clothes. Nobody takes it too

seriously but there is always intention behind it. I spent too many years in a body that limited the answer. I like living in one that lets me say yes.

And I have a personal maxim that probably sums up both the physical and style sides of my life better than anything else: Never walk past a mirror you don’t want to fuck. It’s provocative, obviously, but I actually mean something deeper by it. Do the work required to love the person looking back at you.

What are you proudest of in your career? Any projects in the works?

The people. Not even close. I’ve been fortunate to create Brands I’m incredibly proud of but across my career the businesses I’ve helped build have created somewhere between 3000-4000 jobs. Those aren’t numbers to me anymore. They’re first jobs. Careers. Second chances. Friendships. Marriages. Families. People discovering what they’re capable of. That’s legacy.

Sunday’s Best is probably the Brand that best represents where my head is creatively right now. Five years ago, we challenged Utah’s traditional brunch model with a brunch-forward concept seven days a week. Five years in, it somehow feels like year one. That’s exciting as hell.

We’re continuing to push Sunday’s Best while developing other ideas and partnerships through The McHenry Group. I’m less interested in opening restaurants simply to open restaurants than I am in creating brands that deserve to exist. I want to build things Utah is proud to export.

Between running so many successful restaurants and being a husband and a father, how do you manage a work-life balance?

I don’t. At least not in the traditional sense. Balance makes it sound like everything gets an equal allocation of time. Life doesn’t work that way. I believe in presence. There are moments when the businesses need all of me. And there are moments when none of that matters because one of my girls needs Dad.

Veda, Vera and Elle are the center of my world. Fatherhood isn’t another role I’m trying to balance against everything else. It’s the role that gives everything else perspective. My daughters don’t care about my title. They don’t care about revenue, openings, awards or how many people follow me. They care if I’m there. They care if I’m listening. They care if Dad gets on the floor, shows up, laughs with them, embarrasses them, protects them and loves them. That’s about as clean of a KPI as you’re ever going to get.

I’ve also learned that taking care of myself isn’t selfish or something I squeeze around everybody else’s needs. My physical health, mental health, therapy, training, relationships and self-awareness are part of my responsibility. I want my daughters to experience a father who is strong enough to protect them, soft enough to be present with them and self aware enough to keep growing in front of them. The healthier I become, the more I have to give them.

If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would those be?

Purposeful. Kind. Dangerous.

Purposeful because I want my energy attached to something that matters. Kind because I think the way people feel in your presence is one of the greatest measures of who you are. Dangerous because kindness should never be confused with weakness. To me, dangerous means capable. Prepared. Disciplined. Physically, emotionally, intellectually and professionally able to meet the moment. I want to have tremendous capacity and tremendous restraint. Kind and dangerous can absolutely occupy the same man.

How has your personal style evolved over time?

I’ve stopped asking permission. That’s probably the biggest evolution. When you’re younger, it’s easy to use clothes as armor. You want people to understand what you have, what you know, where you belong. That’s ego.

I’ve done enough work on myself now to recognize the difference between ego and confidence. Ego walks into the room wondering who noticed. Confidence already knows. That’s where the swagger comes from for me now. Not the boots. Not the watch. Not the tattoos. Not the clothes. It’s knowing the man wearing them.

So I’ll paint my nails. I’ll crop the shirt. I’ll wear cowboy boots with something that makes absolutely no sense on paper. I’ll mix Chrome Hearts with vintage, luxury with workwear, traditional tattoo culture with tailoring. I don’t need the outfit to make sense to everybody anymore. It needs to make sense to me. That’s freedom and I think that’s style.

If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Learn to love yourself before you spend your life trying to prove yourself. I spent a lot of

years believing the next achievement would finally answer some internal question. Build more. Win more. Earn more. Become more. Turns out there is no trophy for outrunning yourself. I’d tell the younger me to start the internal work sooner. Get healthy. Go to therapy. Stay curious. Protect your relationships. Be present. Learn the difference between confidence and ego. Don’t let insecurity make decisions for you. And understand that where you water it, it grows.

So choose carefully. Then work your ass off. Love people hard. Stay kind. Stay dangerous. And never stop becoming.

Read more about fashion in Utah: SLUG Style: James Newbold – SLUG Magazine SLUG Style: Elijah June – SLUG Magazine

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