Banducci operated the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, where he launched the careers of The Kingston Trio,[1] Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, and Barbra Streisand, and featured Woody Allen and Dick Cavett before they were well-known, as well as countless folk singers and comedians.

He began wearing a beret after a health inspector insisted he cover his hair while running a food operation, and continued the practice to hide his eventual baldness.

He spent time in jail, and was involved in a number of brawls, with his friends nicknaming him "Rocky" as a result long before the Stallone movie.

Newspaper columnist Herb Caen frequently chronicled Banducci's adventures, and Les Crane and Ira Blue each had a live radio talk show inside the hungry i for a while circa the early '60s.

In 1981, Mort Sahl, Jonathan Winters, Professor Irwin Corey, Jackie Vernon, Ronnie Schell and a host of others gathered to film a tribute to Banducci that was nationally televised and entitled The hungry i Reunion.