Jeremy Fall’s earliest memories of anxiety go back to the playground stairs when he was 4 years old.  He’d put one foot on one stair, the other food on the same stair and then wait a minute to summon the courage to tackle the next step so that both feet were always on the ground. It would take him 20 minutes to climb four steps, surrounded by kids laughing and calling him wuss, scaredy-cat and when he was older, fag.

By the time he turned 16, the six-foot-seven LA native was already a prominent person in Hollywood — he was the gatekeeper for many of the biggest clubs in the A-list scene, brushing elbows nightly with the who’s who of 2000s tabloid pop culture. He went on to entrepreneurial success, opening 14 restaurants, becoming the first restaurateur to be represented by Jay Z’s Roc Nation, and making the “Forbes 30 Under 30” list in 2020.



Despite all his success, Fall lived with constant anxiety and OCD to the point where he had a panic attack so intense he had to leave Jay-Z’s Grammy party and confront his mental health issues. In Falling Upwards: Living the Dream, One Panic Attack at a Time,  Fall blends his narrative with practical takeaways and explores mental health, modern masculinity, the restaurant business and navigating impostor syndrome in the entertainment industry.

“The restaurant business is a very high-pressure environment,” Fall tells L.A. Weekly.  “There’s the long hours and being constantly exposed to alcohol. People in the hospitality industry are also very passionate, and when passion and obsession surround something, it can lead to mental health issues. Working nights, your senses are stimulated to great heights, the noise in the restaurant and customer interactions. It’s very draining emotionally. I think that leads to people feeling lonely and can ultimately lead to mental illness.”

Growing up near Skid Row in downtown L.A., the hospitality route for the future owner of Nighthawk: Breakfast Bar, Tinfoil: Liquor & Grocery, and Easy's at the Beverly Center was not necessarily a path to money or success. For most at the time, it was the means to an end and being a bartender or server was usually just a side gig to pay the bills.

Fall’s French Caribbean Black mother managed Angelique Café on Spring Street, which would later become Sammy Monsour’s Preux and Proper. They lived in the back above the restaurant, where he spent most of his childhood. 



“Hospitality and the restaurant business at the time was not the career I was going for and my mother didn’t want me going anywhere near it,” says Fall. “I saw how hard it was and watched her struggle. But it was unavoidable, and at the age of 11, I started working there bussing tables becoming a server and helping my mother manage the restaurant. I think because of that early exposure, hospitality is in my blood. But I never thought I was ever going to make a career out of it.”

In the book, Fall takes a deep and raw dive into the myth (and advantage) of mental health medications, destigmatizing mental health, especially for men and those of mixed-race backgrounds and the panic attack that saved the self-medicating party animal’s life — Jay-Z’s 2019 Roc Nation Grammy brunch.  

“It started affecting me physically,” he says. “I’d be driving and have anxiety about the green light turning yellow, or the yellow light turning red and it started to create all this unnecessary spiraling. It was starting to get dangerous and reckless and could affect other people's lives. It was getting worse by the day.”

So, with a combination of daily Lexapro, weekly therapy and monthly psychiatry, Fall manages his mental health. After selling his restaurant group in 2019, Fall founded Probably Nothing, a web3 culture studio focused on creating projects combining technology, art and culinary innovation. But while he admits the stigma has gotten better, it’s something that never goes away and needs to be managed.

"The stigma is better,” says the gentle giant. “The younger generation is a lot more open about it. They were born into the information age and being open about identity — sexual orientation and human rights in general — leads to more honesty in terms of how they process mental health and illness. Over time people have become more open and it’s more welcomed now, especially in the mainstream. For better or worse, it’s become a trend.”

And honesty, says the restaurateur, is the true source of our society’s mental health as a whole.

“If you’re going through something, be honest and talk to people about it, especially on social media,” he says. “We all try to be a better version of ourselves  — cooler, more popular. Ultimately that makes us live double lives. You don’t have to post pictures of yourself waking up in the morning, but we need to be more honest with ourselves and others. Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerability. My theory is, you can only get as close to people as much as you’re willing to be honest about yourself. You’ll forge better relationships and true friendships, and that’s important for coping. People forget that we’re all human.”