Drop the name Bonnie Mack on any self-respecting barbecue lover and chances are theyll know who youre talking about. This award-winning chef at the famed Blues City Caf in Memphis, Tenn., has been cooking up some of the best barbecued ribs in Memphis for more than 16 years. I got real good ribs, Bonnie says. People come from all over to eat them.

And when Bonnie says everywhere, he means it. Some of the regulars at the Blues City Caf have included actor Robert Duvall and former President Bill Clinton, a close friend and fellow Arkansas native.

Thats the real guy there, hes my kind of people, Bonnie says of President Clinton. Before he moved to Memphis, Bonnie lived in Little Rock, Ark., and was chef at a local restaurant that then-Governor Clinton and the former First Lady frequented.

I got to know him real well when he came in, he says.

Learning to Cope

Four years ago, when Bonnie was 59, he was diagnosed with kidney disease and began dialysis at Renal Care Groups Whitehaven facility. He says the long hours of dialysis treatment were tough at first, but now he doesnt let the disease get in the way of his life.

I struggled with it for a year and a half, Bonnie says. But I figured it out after that. This is the only life I have to live. If you do what you gotta do, and follow the instructions, then its not too hard.

While he cut his workload to accommodate dialysis treatments, Bonnie is still the main man at the Blues City Caf, working on the days he doesnt have dialysis.

He no longer can eat some of the foods that made him famous, but as a chef, he occasionally gets to taste his own cooking. I had to cut down on certain things, he says.

At home, Bonnies wife does the cooking. We have a schedule, he says. She does a good job of keeping things tasty.

When hes not pleasing palates in the restaurant, he stays busy with appearances on the Food Network and bottling his own barbecue sauce, which is available in Memphis grocery stores and by mail order.

When Bill Clinton was president, I shipped him cases of it, Bonnie says.

Never Slowing Down

When he does have free time, Bonnie likes to spend it fishing. If I feel all right after dialysis, Ill go fishing on Saturdays and Sundays, he says.

Bonnie has another passion, too. I love football, he says. His two favorite NFL teams are the Tennessee Titans and the Dallas Cowboys. He is friends with both Titans coach Jeff Fisher and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Bonnie once fed the entire Titans team when they were in Memphis. He also tries to make two trips a year to Dallas to see the Cowboys play.

Despite his busy life, Bonnie says that he still needs support, which he gets from his family. His wife and two children living at home help him cope with his disease on a daily basis. Theyve been pretty good to me, he says. Its good to have them around.