Jen Hidinger Kendrick and Leah Melnick

00:00Hello, this is Jen Heidinger-Kendrick, founder of Giving Kitchen. Let me tell you a little more. Giving Kitchen is a James Beard award-winning nonprofit that provides emergency assistance to food service workers nationally. Headquartered in Atlanta since 2013, Giving Kitchen has served over 19,000 food service workers and awarded over $12 million to food service workers in crisis. Giving Kitchen helps food service workers that get hurt or sick, lose a family member, or suffer a housing disaster like a flood or a fire by offering financial assistance to cover rent and utilities. If you know someone that works in a bar or restaurant that is in crisis, tell them ask for help from Giving Kitchen by visiting givingkitchen.org slash help. Wanna get involved and support Giving Kitchen? Dining with Gratitude in October, GK's month-long campaign where the food service community pledges to raise critical funds and spread the word about their mission. Learn more by clicking the link in this episode's notes, givingkitchen.org slash DWG.

01:05["The Tastiest Hour of Talk in Music City"] Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. ["The Tastiest Hour of Talk in Music City"] Hello, Music City. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. And yeah, we went back to the OG intro for this one as we are doing another episode of Atlanta Restaurant Radio. And today we are talking with Jen Heidinger Kendrick, who is the founder of the Giving Kitchen, and Leah Melnick, who is the Director of Strategic Operations. I think that's what she said her title is. She kind of does everything over there. She is the best, Leah Melnick. And so this episode is gonna be co-interviewed. We have Billy Kramer, who is the co-host of this episode.

02:07He is the owner of NFA Burger. You heard him last week on Atlanta Restaurant Radio. Very, very exciting stuff. This is a very important episode and I highly recommend that you share this wherever you possibly can, near and far, if you love people who work in restaurants. If you are a restaurant worker, this is a very informative episode. We went down to Atlanta. We were at the Giving Kitchen headquarters in the office of Jen Heidinger Kendrick and we made a studio and we recorded this episode. This is very important stuff. They help restaurant workers. You're gonna learn all about it right now. And you know, we have no idea. I wanna touch on something. A guy named Matt Carney, who is, was the owner of Smokin' Thighs, had a hit and run accident in his parking lot and he passed away on July 4th. And my heart just goes out to every single person in the Smokin' Thighs community and the Wedgwood Houston community because he was such an amazing, enigmatic person.

03:14I mean, just everything I've read about him. I did not know Matt. I think I met Matt. I did not know him and I just know that everybody out there is hurting. And you know, in this episode, Billy asks Jen, he says, what was your life like the day before your late husband found out he had a terminal cancer diagnosis? Everything was great. Everything was fine. And I think that every day we go, everything's going well, you have no idea what might happen tomorrow. And I think it's a good idea to be prepared and it's a good idea to support a nonprofit like The Giving Kitchen because they are here to help you in those moments. And it's something you really, really need. So I'm gonna talk real quick about what our sponsors have done to help The Giving Kitchen and how you can help The Giving Kitchen before the episode even starts. Rob Bowman from All Star Fire came up with this idea and I love him for it. He was like, he heard us talking about The Giving Kitchen. He said, man, I wanna be a supporter of The Giving Kitchen.

04:15How can I help with The Giving Kitchen through the podcast? And he said, every single person that calls and gets a quote and has an inspection done in their restaurant, he wants to donate $50 for every time somebody calls and says that. All you have to do is call 615-865-5600 and say, hey, I got promo code Brandon. I want you to come in and do a quick fire inspection for me. This is a local company. They care about you and your business. They also wanna come in and help train, right? So when you call Rob Bowman, not only are you helping The Giving Kitchen, but they're also gonna come in and they're gonna teach your staff how to use fire extinguishers, how to use the kitchen suppression systems. Just really, really important. It's not something that we think about, but having training on that is so important. That is something from a local company that is here to help you love working with All Star Fire. So that happened, right? And I was like, wow, man, thank you. We love to help The Giving Kitchen. Then Jason Ellis from Superstore said, hey, man, I'm in. Every time somebody calls and gets a quote on a new dish machine.

05:15This is for new customers only, right? If you've been waiting to call Jason Ellis because you wanna have a quote on all your dish machine chemicals or you just wanna meet him, if you call him and get a quote, you don't have to buy the dish machine. If you get a quote and you call him and get an audit of what you're currently doing, he's gonna donate $50 to The Giving Kitchen. His number is 770-337-1142. And that is what you're gonna call. You're gonna call him and say, hey, man, I heard about you on Nashville Restaurant Radio and I want to get a quote on our dish machine and I want you to help make a $50 donation to The Giving Kitchen for us. And then Matthew Clements from Robin's Insurance said, hey, man, I'm in. If somebody calls and gets an insurance quote from us, I'm happy to donate $50 to The Giving Kitchen as well, which was massive because using a company that specializes in restaurant insurance, he understands the business. He's doing everything you possibly can to take care of you. I mean, peace of mind is so, so massive when it comes down to operating a restaurant.

06:16You've just got to have it. And I want to give you Matthew's number right now. This is his cell number. It is 863-409-9372. He is the hospitality restaurant specialist over at Robin's Insurance. He's also a partner. So he's a guy you definitely want to have on your team and somebody who you can rely on for your insurance, for your restaurant business. We have some more. Michael Dean from Cali Sober. Yes, Cali Sober, our favorite THC sparkling water. They have three amazing flavors, Berry Ginger Fizz, Paloma Spritz, as well as a Ranch Water. These are five milligrams of THC per serving. You can buy them through Lipman Brothers. They're distributed all throughout Nashville and Atlanta and Charlotte. So you can get these in any city, but for every placement, if you're like, hey, look, I've been thinking about THC. I want to put one on my menu. They're going great. We've got them for sale at the Green Hills Grill. They're going amazing. The THC beverage is just absolutely something that is blowing up.

07:18Michael can come and do a tasting with your team, talk about responsible service, all of those things. He will do that, but you've got to give him a call. 980-297-6481. And he would donate $50 every time that you make a placement. So if you say, hey man, I'm going to call them my brothers and I'm going to make a place, I'm going to place an order for your product, call him and say, hey, I did that. I'd like you to make a donation. I heard you on Nashville Restaurant Radio. Please make a donation for us. He will do, or call him and just say, tell me about your product. He's an amazing guy and he is blowing up. Everybody that's brought him on is like, dude, this is amazing. And people love his product. And finally, we are talking to Gordon Food Service. Now Gordon Food Service is our amazing title sponsor. And I said, hey man, I'd love to have you guys do it. And he goes, man, I'll one-up you on that. Let's say for any new customer that calls Paul Hunter, at 615-945-6753, when you place your first order, if you place a first order above $1,500, he's going to take $250 and take that right off your invoice.

08:22So you're getting a $250 credit on your first order and he is going to make a donation of $250 to The Giving Kitchen. So if you're a new customer and you want to learn more about GFS, they're going to make a $250 donation directly to The Giving Kitchen in your name and you'll get $250 off that first invoice. So what an amazing way, if you're thinking about, hey, look, you know, I'm not real happy with my current broad line vendor and I'd like to learn a bit more. Give Paul Hunter a call, give him a shot. And I think that you'll be really happy with everything that Gordon Food Service has to offer. Again, that's Paul Hunter, 615-945-6753. 6753. I am going to jump into this episode. Thanks for listening to all of the sponsor stuff. I'm really excited about all of the opportunities around The Giving Kitchen. We are going to be doing a dinner at Mayor Bowl pretty soon. October the 17th is going to be a charity benefit for The Giving Kitchen. We're putting everything together. If you are a chef out there, would like to donate some time, a dinner, or anything along those lines that we could use for an auction item, that money will go directly towards The Giving Kitchen.

09:29Just send me an email, Brandon at NewLightHospitality.com. That way you can get ahold of me and I would love to help you out. So I'm loving this Atlanta time. I hope that you're enjoying it too. And we've got lots more great episodes coming up for you for the end of the month. Excited to get back into the swing of Nashville Restaurant Radio with other Nashville chefs as soon as August starts. Thank you for listening and enjoy this episode with The Giving Kitchen. Super excited today. We're having so much fun here. We actually hit record this time. We've hit record. It is definitely recording. We are coming to you from The Giving Kitchen offices. The actual office of the founder, Jen Heidinger Kendrick. Hey Jen. How are you doing? I'm so excited to see you again in Atlanta. I've never been here.

10:30You have all the times you've been to the studio I've never been here. Never to Atlanta? No, to this office. Exactly. Well, I hope it was as welcoming as you imagined it would be. Even more so. It's amazing. Excellent. We are also joined with Leah Melnick. Hello. Leah, tell us what you do here. Your title is the. This, that. You kind of do everything. If I ever have any questions, I know when I call you, you're like, you have the answer, you put me in the right. That's a compliment. She's on it. I'm the senior director of field operations here. So our department focuses on expanding Giving Kitchen across the United States so that we can help more food service workers. Leah's also, she's being modest. She's also been a part of the organization since day one. So she's one of our longest tenured employees. The longest, yeah. We are also joined here on Atlanta Restaurant Radio with the man Billy Kramer, our cohost today.

11:34Depending on which order you're listening to this podcast and it's either the fourth time you've heard me or the first time. We're gonna record an interview with just you and that's gonna be the first one. So everybody knows who you are going into the rest of them. But I have no idea. We did all these in one day. So we'll see how they come out. We did. It's a good time. Have you having fun today? I'm having a blast. I'm so amazed with your setup. So fast, too. I know. Also, I mean, look at the equipment. No one can see the equipment, but we can see, but. We blinked and we were in a studio. Yeah. We turned her office here into a studio. Follow, look on Instagram to post about this and we'll have pictures of it. Normally her office is a liquor cabinet. But today. People aren't supposed to know that, Billy. Oh, sorry. It's for auction items, not personal use. Go on, looking down at the Boss Hog, Old Rip Van Winkle. You got some stuff in here. I mean, you know. There's some stuff hidden, too. There's some stuff. There's some stuff I don't want Billy to see. Oh, damn. No, okay. I see this hidden stuff.

12:34That's hilarious. These are very generous people who you can bid on these things. Like a Team Heidi, right? I mean, Team Heidi is GivingKitchen's longest signature fundraising event and tasting event. It is, it brings together thousands of people, soon to be. We just this past Team Heidi actually brought together about 1,700 people and 98 of Atlanta's restaurants and bartenders to come and do bites and sips and just commune together. It is, the fundraising event pays homage to our very first Team Heidi, which is the whole reason GivingKitchen exists today. In 2013, when the community rallied behind my late chef husband, Ryan Heidinger, in support of his terminal cancer diagnosis, they rallied behind he and I. And what was supposed to raise, you know, 15, $20,000 to help us pay for our living expenses during his final year. Ended up raising nearly $300,000 in one night, 13 years, 12 years ago. And that's really what ignited GivingKitchen today and what we do to help food service workers across the country.

13:40So yes, Team Heidi and auctions, like the ones that we celebrated in Nashville recently and like we do at Team Heidi here in Atlanta, there are many auction opportunities where community can step in and get some really fun chef experiences. I feel like there's a piece of that story that I'm curious about because you did the initial Team Heidi and you raised all of this money. Your late husband lost his battle. And then after that, like something had to happen from that point to create the GivingKitchen. And this was something, can you talk about that a little bit? Oh, I mean, community coming together in a selfless act to uplift one of their own is what happened. And that inspiring moment that Heidi had on stage at Team Heidi number one, right in front of strangers and many friends declaring his cancer diagnosis a gift in front of so many people because of what it had done to bring community together is really what ignited it from that ripple kind of effect. There's so often we talk about service and community and helping thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of people and it always starts with just one.

14:48And so it was a really amazing moment to uplift one human, my late husband, into now what GivingKitchen has done for 11 years. We actually just celebrated our 11th anniversary and we've helped over 19,000 food service worker individuals since our very beginning. It's pretty awesome. What has it been like to see, and I know Leah, same question for you, but what has it been like for you being so intimately involved with this? Every year almost annually coming back to celebrate this and culminating with this past year raising over a million dollars. What does that emotionally do to you every year? It's nice to be able to answer this in front of you because you were there for the first time back in March. That was my second time. Your second time, that's right. You were back, that's right. Yes. Two years in a row. And it is, our goals for fundraising are pretty significant but it blew everybody away. I always talk about Team Heidi being joy because it really, and clearly I am biased, but it is true joy when you see that many people come together to help support an industry that is the backbone of everybody's lives.

15:58It feels to me personally, to directly answer that question, like a wedding. It's positivity, it's a culmination of hard work. It's like a family reunion. There is a major celebrational moment that happens when you're on stage and just being able to see people you haven't seen in a while or you see them regularly. That's what Team Heidi is, all in support of this industry that we love so much. I know Leah can speak to it because she's been to every single one as well. But for me, it really is, it's a personal journey every single year. It's a little emotional sometimes all in a really good way but that celebration is at the forefront for sure. I love that. Tell, you're from day one, you're an OG, the OGest of OGs. The OGest. How did you get involved with everything? And then again, kind of same question, like what has this journey been like? Yeah, I actually have been to all Team Heidi's except the very first one. At the time I was helping to run a barbecue restaurant here local in Atlanta called Fox Brothers Barbecue.

17:01It's delicious. And we were putting together a fundraiser for a dear friend of mine and our executive chef at that time. Charlotte was diagnosed with terminal cancer. So we were hosting a fundraiser where we pulled in a bunch of different restaurateurs and friends and community came together to help us to raise money to help her through her cancer diagnosis. It was the weekend after the first Team Heidi and Jen and Ryan came to our fundraiser with a check, got onto stage and not only donated to our cause at the time but announced in that moment for the very first time that Giving Kitchen was going to start as a result of what happened the weekend before. This was the first time I met you both. I ran, I found them after doing all the work to create this fundraiser. I couldn't believe this was going to become something that could continue to help more people just like my dear friend Charlotte, just like Ryan and just like all the many people I've worked with in the food service industry before.

18:08I came to Fox Brothers with a background in nonprofit work. So when I ran to find Jen and Ryan, I just said, this is what I do. I'm volunteering with you starting now and I did. It was amazing. It was a little less glamorous at this point. I didn't picture you this outgoingly. I didn't know you had it in you. Oh my goodness, please. I'll never forget the first text I sent her of like, okay, if you really want to volunteer, here's where I need your help. Oh yeah, we don't have to go into that one. But look where you are today, 11 years later. Exactly. A few months later, it turned into a part-time role and by the beginning of the next year, it became a full-time role. So most of my work in the Giving Kitchen historically has been building our programs and our services to help food service workers in crisis. We've built our team amazingly and that is now really efficiently run and I'm working in the field to help grow this mission out from where we started in Atlanta to then the state of Georgia, to Tennessee, to North Carolina and now fully the entire nation, which is really exciting.

19:18Super exciting and Billy, we have, why is this so loud when I'm talking? I don't know what's going on with my voice. You sound great. My voice is so loud. Okay, I'm on two there, that's what it is. Hi everybody, I'm back. Hey. It's like late night radio. I can't hear this. Hey now, okay. Billy, tell us, we haven't talked, it's kind of your original, like you and your engagement with the Giving Kitchen, you've been owned NFA Burger for five years. Almost. How did you get involved in all of this? So I originally, when I was doing pop-ups, so after I had my career abruptly shortened in ad tech sales, I decided to start doing pop-ups and I was actually looking for people to work for me and I had this woman named Whitney Russell who started helping me at pop-ups and Whitney was very involved in the Giving Kitchen, I think she would spot, like volunteer at events. I know Whitney, she.

20:18She passed away. Yes. Not from COVID, but during COVID. Yes. And one day, so she would do these pop-ups with me and she was so sweet and we had one guy flame out of one of my pop-ups. He just wigged out and she said, here, take my Uber credits and I'll send you home and I paid the guy for his shift and she sent him over with Uber credits. It's just like, she was so sweet and that's who she was. So I think either right before I opened NFA or right after, Sean Polini who does a lot of work in the Atlanta restaurant community, but now he works for the Giving Kitchen, he posted this thread on the Giving Kitchen Facebook group that said I'm giving a couch away or a love seat or something like that. Whoever donates money can have it. And I'd seen Whitney post something on the Facebook group. She's like, oh, I'm interested in it. So I private messaged Sean and I said, I'll pay for it. I can't help you get it to her, but I'll pay for it if you wanna give it to her. So that was kind of like my first actual foray into the Giving Kitchen.

21:21And so I would donate money here and there during, since the time we opened the restaurant. And then, I don't know, last year, probably late February, I was having a conversation with John Ben Hays who's a chef, also heavily involved in the Giving Kitchen. I think he used to live here, is that right? Is that where he was involved? I think he used to live here and then moved to Savannah. Anyway, we were talking about doing a pop-up at NFA to raise money for the Giving Kitchen. Now, John, I don't know if anybody knows who John is. If you've seen the movie, The Menu, the burger at the end. That's right, yep. The burger at the end of the movie was created by John for Ray Fiennes to present in the movie. So they said they needed a burger at the end of the movie. John was a consultant on the set. He's like, I got this. He taught Ray how to make the burger. So I had this idea, you'll come up to NFA, we'll make your burger, we'll donate all the proceeds to the Giving Kitchen. He's like, awesome, I love it. And then I got off the phone. I said, man, that was really easy.

22:22Like, here's this guy I don't know who's gonna drive up from Savannah. We're gonna do a pop-up and we're gonna give the money to the Giving Kitchen. So then I called my buddy, George Moats up in New York. I said, hey, if I did this event, would you come down and cook burgers for a day? We donate all the money to the Giving Kitchen. He had no idea what the Giving Kitchen was. I gave him a quick rundown. He's like, yeah, sure. I was like, all right, that was really easy. Now I have like the world's foremost burger authority coming down. I have John who's at the time was like pretty, I guess well known as a food consultant because he was on all these podcasts for the movie. So I decided I'm gonna invite chefs from all around the country that people I know who have helped me learn how to make burgers and help me learn how to run my restaurant. And so I decided I'd invite all these guys down. We'll raise money for the Giving Kitchen. And so we started the Burger Benefit. And within about 60 days of creating the concept, we were the only other time I've been here, walked in here with a check for, I think that check was for $37,000 or something like that.

23:22So. That's amazing. But I think. Incredible. So I appreciate that. But like, I think like Whitney, like if you just knew Whitney. I just can't believe I never knew about your connection to Whitney. So Whitney, she got really sick during COVID, not from COVID. She had this other thing going on. She probably had it for a long time. It just, it was, it's one of the rarest diseases. I can't even explore. I mean, I can explain it, but like, you'll never know anybody who has this thing. And she said, I don't want to get my father sick. So I'm going to stay home from COVID. I said, no problem. And I continued to put a couple hundred bucks in her bank account every week. And then I just stopped hearing from her. And then one day I get a message like, hey, I'm going to come in tomorrow. Awesome. I mean, I'd been paying her the whole time and I really care. I was like, she's so sweet. I knew she wasn't taking advantage of me. And then like two months later, she never showed up. Two months later, I get a call from her mom. Who was explaining to me what was wrong. She was in a hospital. And she was thanking me for putting money in her bank account every week.

24:23She was like, you don't need to do that. I was like, I don't, this is what we do. Like we help her family. We help each other. So, sorry. Jenna seemed to get teary before. I have. She has. Now we all have. Great. Anyway, so, you know, when you meet people like Whitney, who like would give the shirt off their back to help food service workers in crisis, it makes it pretty easy to like wanna do those things. So, you know, that's kind of why we're here today. Well, why we're here today was I decided to go up to Nashville and take my wife on a spring break trip and tour Giving Kitchen events. And that's where I met. The Tennessee Tasting. Well, actually I met Brandon at Team Heidi. Okay, so this is where you first met? Yeah, we cornered. Well, I was cornering Andrew Zimmern. Can I tell the story? Can I tell the story? Okay. I felt so bad for Andrew, by the way. I'm just saying that on live. We're on podcast. He loves you. I asked Andrew, at Team Heidi, I asked Andrew Zimmern if he would be the person.

25:26I was having his auction item. And I said, I would like for you to, will you be the interview? So I can say you get to be the podcast host for the day. And then you'll interview Andrew. He goes, done, dude. Here's my number. Here's the whole thing. It's great. But he was talking to somebody. I walked up and interrupted to kind of, I was like, this is my shot. I gotta do it. Fast forward to the Tennessee Tasting. And he wins the auction item. I'm talking to him and he goes, yeah, I met Andrew Zimmern at the Team Heidi. It was afterwards, we're at the Super Rica. And I was talking, he goes, some poor guy came by and tried to save Andrew Zimmern. He goes, some poor guy tried to come by and save Andrew Zimmern from talking to me. He goes, I had had a couple. I was really enjoying it. And he goes, I go, who was that guy? And he goes, I don't know. We took a picture. He pulls out his phone. I'm like, that's me. It was me right there. I was like, that's when I asked him. He's like, oh, this is a fun full circle moment. That's hilarious.

26:27Yeah. So, Andrew, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry. I cornered you. I really thought somebody would come save him the whole time. I really did. I was like, at some time. He does not need any savings. But I thought at some time, somebody's gonna come give me the hug. That's not what I was doing at all. He's still gonna, we were still gonna work that out with the other better. We're still gonna do that interview. It's gonna be a thing. But today, that's why we came out here to Atlanta. He set it up. We had a bunch of people to talk to. Chris Hall. Yep. Chris Hall. Chris Hall's another founding member of Giving Kitchen. So, we had Charlie. I'm not even gonna pronounce his last name anymore. I'm blown away. I've known the guy for 25 years. And now I don't know how to say his last name. Charlie Argello, you say it. Argello. Argello. He's from 48th Street Market. Super nice guy. Does a lot for the Dunwoody community. And Matt? Matt Grief? Matt Grief. Grief. He's the Master of Spirits for Distillery of Modern Art. So, he was on. And I say Master of Spirits, because to this date, that's the coolest title of anybody I've ever met. That is pretty cool.

27:28I called him Master Distiller, and he was like, ah, no, I'm Master of Spirits. So, I met a guy from Diageo years ago, way before I had a restaurant. It was like National Burger Week. Well, it was New York Burger Week with Rev. Rev, our friend Rev, made a week in New York. Ciencio. Ciencio. It's actually pronounced Chancho. Oh. Now he's gonna hear me. Yeah, it's like the same thing. It's the same thing with three different ways to say the name. Well, because most of the time, you meet these people through their name on Instagram, and you don't know how to pronounce it. Oh my goodness. So, you meet Rev. No, I met him in person. Yeah. In Louisville. Okay, there you go. So, it was New York Burger. Branded Hospitality, is that him? Yep. Yeah, yeah. And he had this event where he had a guy from Diageo show up, and the guy got up, and he's like, I work for Diageo, I'm the Master of Spirits. And I was like, that's the coolest title. I think besides astronaut. Yeah. Or wizard. Right, that was like the coolest title of anybody I ever met. So, now when I see Matt, I'm like, you're the Master of Spirits. That's awesome. And we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors.

28:28You guys thought that we were done with sponsors offering help to the Giving Kitchen. You were wrong. Because we have the Miller Chandler team at Lee & Company here in Nashville, and they are the broker that you need to purchase your new space, to lease your new space. Miller Chandler and Lee Ann James are here to help you. If you want to expand, if you want to open a restaurant, if you want to open a retail site, you're looking for retail property, this is the team you need to talk with. And Miller has said, here's the deal, man. We are happy to honor $50 to anybody who calls and sets up a consultation with them. So, if you're looking for, if you're interviewing agents or brokers and you're looking for somebody to talk to about, hey, look, I'd like to find a new spot, here's what you do. You're gonna call Miller Chandler. His number is 615-473-2452. Or you can call Lee Ann James. Her number is 731-335-1121.

29:30And you're gonna say, hey, I heard about you on Nashville Restaurant Radio. I'd love to help, I'd like to schedule a consultation and make a donation to the Giving Kitchen. And they're gonna go, awesome, we'd love to do that. When would you like to meet? So, they're amazing people and they are really interested in making sure that the hospitality workers are taken care of and that we are supporting the Giving Kitchen through and through. So, thank you to the Miller Chandler team at Lee and Associates. Unleash the Wolf with Campo Bravo Tequila. Campo Bravo is a 100% agave tequila with a bold, smooth flavor, perfect for sipping neat as a shot or in cocktails. Campo Bravo is also certified additive free, which means there are no artificial flavors or sweeteners in Campo Bravo, like there are in many other brands. Campo Bravo gives you all the bold, smooth flavor you want in a tequila with nothing you don't. Campo Bravo is actually truly farm to bottle tequila, meaning our fifth generation agave farmers meticulously control entire production process from the farm to the bottle to give you the highest quality handcrafted tequila.

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32:58Click it, click to get a free quote or give them a call, 888-761-3238. The other side of this coming out here is I really wanted to talk about the Giving Kitchen and I wanted, I just, I'm on this mission because I want people, I think people hear Giving Kitchen and it's a big charity, but you know what, it's not. It's a lot closer to home, I think, than you possibly would realize that this isn't some regional, like this is your, and it's a small, their office is beautiful, but like it's not in like a 20 story building and here we are and these are real stories about people that we all know. And my story is I sold food for so many years and I quit drinking almost four and a half years ago and I see, I've had so many conversations with people sitting in a walk-in crying and I've seen so many people that are on their last straw or that just can't make it and I've had the, I guess the ability to go in so many different restaurants, so many people work in a restaurant, they may work in four or five restaurants or one restaurant their whole life.

34:05I've been in thousands of kitchens and I've seen so many different things and one thing that's common throughout it all is that we weren't, we're not ready. We're not ready to handle this thing as an industry. There's a lot of mental health issues, there's alcoholism, there's accidents, there's mistakes, there's things that nobody's protecting our industry and I've always thought us as a community need to step up and do something to protect ourselves and I had this goal and this vision and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna make this thing happen and I started Nashville Restaurant Radio and let's start building this community of people and let's build it and I was thinking Nashville and this could potentially grow and the pandemic started and I heard about, I got an email from a guy named Matt Leff and Matt is with Ryzone Productions and there's like this initial, it may have been from you, that was like, hey, Giving Kitchen's coming to Nashville and I got Ryan Schroeder on the podcast and it was like a five minute segment, just tell me about it and he told me and I go, this is exactly what I wanna do and at that point I went, I'm all in, whatever you guys need, this is what we need to be doing as a community, as a nation, this will make us prepared, this protects our industry and our people that are so incredibly valuable and underappreciated and it's doing all of that and more and I've just said, I wanna be a vessel for whatever I can do to help you guys in your mission so this is honorable, I love being here, I love any way I can help and that's my why.

35:38I just, amen. I think that's my favorite thing of Giving Kitchen, right? It touches every single, it touches all of us and in a different way and I think one of our favorite questions to ask internally and as we're talking to individuals who are outside of staff, it's like everybody has their own Giving Kitchen story. Mine is always gonna be centered around my late husband and this origin and this spark and this inspiration and all of it and it drives me and it makes me excited to share the story and we talk also about how do you do this day in and day out? I have learned very much throughout my 11 years that being vulnerable and sharing that is an opportunity for other people to have the courage to ask for help because at the end of the day, that's kind of really all I care about. I want people to know that there is an opportunity in Giving Kitchen to be an area of support. Leah has her story, you have your story, Billy has his story, it's really so remarkable. I mean, half of us in America have worked in food service.

36:39We all have a, probably a family member who's working in food service today or you have your favorite bartender or chef or server. It's just when you talk about this industry, it really should never be about the quote unquote of what's wrong. We understand that there's statistics out there that there are labels out there of suicide ideation and substance misuse or abuse or that all of these other kind of characteristics that this industry carries but for Giving Kitchen being an opportunity and a resource for them, this is about what's right in food service and how we strengthen our communities by uplifting those who work and give us the opportunity to gather together. Can I ask, Jen, can I ask you a question? Sure. So I've heard you say it before, like you're like one incident away from needing the Giving Kitchen, right? I mean, we all think we live in like, I'm doing- Sometimes one paycheck. Right, I'm doing great and then the next day, what was it like for you, and you may have said this in the past and I miss it, but what was it like for you the day before Ryan was diagnosed?

37:44Like how good were you guys? I mean, I don't know, maybe not. Maybe it was struggling or whatever, but to get that diagnosis was like, I wouldn't say the pin that pulled the grenade, but I mean, what was it like the day before? It's a great question. I mean, for us, we were husband and wife. We had a couple of dogs at home. The thing that we are concentrating on the most was building a soon to be restaurant here in Atlanta. So all of our efforts existed around a small business ourselves. So we saw the future. We saw everything right ahead of us of building a restaurant of our own. I would say the moment that happened when, at least in Ryan's experience and in my experience, for us, he was given a terminal cancer diagnosis in six months to live. And that, for me, that put a very different spin on perspective of all of a sudden there's just this blank wall that's just right in front of you that someone else has prescribed for your life.

38:54And that was really, I think, one of the catalysts for Ryan being in his position. And I think what really inspired community was that there was this moment in time for him seeing this proverbial kind of blackness that he decided to just look at it from a different perspective. There was a moment of acceptance in his journey and in the very beginning of this diagnosis where he just accepted this to be a part of his path and what it could do to open chances, opportunity doors, whatever it might be, for other people. And it's not often. So when you ask me, what I saw was I was, I'm a widow, I was an incredibly loving wife. I ended up being his full-time caregiver. So the day before was we were getting ready to open up a restaurant in a few months, to be honest. And it came down to- That was Staple House? Yep. It was prelude to Staple House and Staple House Upcoming to absolutely just sheer terror of not knowing what was gonna happen for the rest of our lives until a couple days later when Ryan's former bosses and our mentors at that time said, they came to our house and they said, let us help.

40:03I mean, that literally guided the intentions and beliefs and motivation of what Giving Kitchen is today is that vulnerability turned to courage, turned to the reminder that everybody has an opportunity to ask for help. Would you have known to ask for help had they not come to you? Absolutely not. I mean, as a young person back then, I was 29 when he was diagnosed, 30 when he died and even still to this day, I think we all naturally carry a lot of pride. And it wasn't until they came to us and said, let us help you. This is what this food service industry, the restaurant community does naturally, which I've been a part of for so long, but until you're faced with something in my perspective so catastrophic that the only thing that we could concentrate on at home was his medical journey and other people were able to step up and lend the hand of being able to help. And there's so many things that story speaks to. Brandon, you talk about how the community coming together is what's important to make this happen.

41:04And Billy, you asked specifically whether or not Jen knew to ask for help. Giving Kitchen can't do what it does without the community still coming together. With Brandon being a part of our Tennessee Community Engagement Council, we're trying to build community engagement councils across the United States so that people who are super engaged and have some influence within our industry can help bring that awareness to our industry of how they can help. And there's a couple of different ways you can help by sharing with a food service worker as to where they can ask for help. At the same time, just because someone knows where to ask for help, it doesn't mean they will. There's a lot of pride in our industry and a lot of people that think that someone else deserves it more than them. I can't tell you while I was on the programs team here at Giving Kitchen how many times I heard that and how many times I know they still hear that today. So it's making sure that the community is not just aware of Giving Kitchen, but has faith and confidence about what Giving Kitchen can do for them.

42:07And by having these community engagement councils, by having folks in the industry who are throwing fundraisers so that we're not gonna have to turn someone away when they reach out to us asking for help because of lack of funding. And so this growth of community that each of you are already doing to help build what Giving Kitchen is makes it be a part of what we're all doing right now. I love that. So let's pivot right there to how people can help because we've got a couple different, let's talk about our demographic of people here. We've got restaurant owners, we have executive chefs, we have restaurant managers, general managers, and we have the people out there, people who love to dine and they care about this industry. We have food writers, we have all kinds of different people in this industry right now listening. Let's talk about a couple of ways that each individually, if I'm an owner, how can I help? If I'm a chef, how can I help? If I'm a manager, if I'm a guest, how can I help? Well, let me add to that first that we also have caterers and food trucks and concessions, cafeteria workers, bars and tap rooms too.

43:14So the industry of food service is ever growing and kind of ever changing these days as well. So as a part of that industry and how they are able to help is to just keep spreading the word. As far as how we can help them, we have a couple of different ways. Through our financial assistance program, we're able to provide any food service worker that asks us for help that's had an illness, injury, death in their immediate family, or a housing disaster like a flood or a fire, an offer for them to apply for financial assistance to cover their living expenses. So that would include payments for their rent or mortgage and basic utilities, including gas, power and water. And that's just one part of it. As you mentioned before, there's so many other things, the mental illness, the substance abuse or misuse, as well as just other housing, utilities and employment resources that are needed throughout our industry. That's where our stability network comes into play, to build a holistic approach to finding stability for the food service worker in crisis.

44:20So while we do one thing really well, which is figuring out how to pay for living expenses while you find yourselves in one of those unexpected crises that takes you out of work, we are partnered with so many different community resources that are doing what they do extremely well. So by connecting with them, we're able to give warm referrals to community resources so that you might be able to find free or discounted mental health assistance, grief counseling. If you need assistance finding where you can go for substance abuse or treatment centers or for recovery, we have connections for that too. And the options are endless through a lot of different partnerships we've had in the past with Unite Us, a great platform for resources, and currently findhelp.org, which helps us connect with hundreds of thousands of different community resources across the country. So it's really incredible that when a food service worker comes to ask us for help, we know that we have a direction to turn to for them. I wanna be really mindful too, and to piggyback off what Leah just shared, is that giving kitchen is meant for everyone.

45:27When we look at the fabric of food service, this is not just people who look like my late husband. I mean, he was otherwise privileged, he was white male, he received a terminal cancer diagnosis that was typically found in elderly Latino women. And the one directive that he gave our founding members when he was still alive was I want this to be for everyone. And so we've done really diligent strategic work over our 11 years to make sure that we can meet food service workers where they are and when they really need it. In order to do that, we have built a multilingual call center, we have a completely Spanish immersive experience, we can speak in over 180 languages with an interpretation service. So it doesn't matter where you work, as long as you're in commercial food service, the color of your skin, the religion, anything, you are gonna be a part of what we offer here at Giving Kitchen. Yeah, that was a big part there. I didn't mean to skip over that. It's like what exactly you guys can do to cover people.

46:28That's absolutely amazing. And what are those, because every time I've been in a team, Heidi, there's been testimonials, and it's just, it's so incredible to see the people who've benefited and to hear the stories. Any particular stories you could share, any moments that you've kind of experienced that were like really moving to you? I mean, my goodness, there's a lot. And I will say one thing that we do when we are gathered for a meeting, we share some testimony from food service workers who have given us the okay to do that. Confidentiality is extremely, it's a priority for Giving Kitchen. First and foremost, it takes a lot of courage to ask for help. And our licensed social workers and our entire team really take pride in that confidentiality. But there are many stories. I mean, the stories of, there's cancer, there's broken legs, there's death of children or parents.

47:32There are housing disasters. There are, gosh, brain tumors. I'm trying to think of all of the recent testimonies of gratitude that we've heard from clients recently. There's really not one thing that we kind of haven't seen or heard. I know always one of my favorite things that I see happen is a client comes to us and asks for help. And maybe six months goes by and they're doing pretty well and they end up volunteering at one of our events. Or stepping up in some way and that's always a really wonderful feel good moment. Didn't somebody in Nashville or Charlotte, weren't they, they were somebody who'd received funds but it was now donating money or, did I miss? Yes, that was one of our auction lot winners at the Nashville Tasting Event, actually. Right. That's incredible. Leah, can you explain, what was the story? You know what I'm saying? Well, you can't tell. But yes, it does happen. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it does. I remember meeting the person or hearing it.

48:33But like things like that where they, like somebody is like on their, they're living paycheck to paycheck and is somehow still figuring out a way to contribute to what The Giving Kitchen does. And then you meet people at really successful restaurants or like chains or corporations and you're like, I don't get it. How can you not figure this out? This person figured it out. Yeah, and I think that's the thing too. It's like, even as we're growing and spreading this mission and finding those catalyst moments of connection, it always comes back down to like, did you work in food service? I mean, when are you gonna go out to eat next? Where's your favorite restaurant in your community or in your neighborhood? I mean, as soon as you dial it down to like, oh yeah, this industry is a backbone of what we do every single day just as living in community. That's when it really becomes real for a lot of people. We were talking earlier with Chris. I said, you know what's one of the most confounding things in this industry is the lack of respect people in the food service world get when you consider the fact that they're the people responsible for your food, right?

49:37The thing that you do three, four times a day that you need to live and that somehow there's this disconnect that they're not entitled to be real people or that they have real problems. Yeah, I think, again, I think that goes back to like, what's wrong, what's right, you know? This is all about the positivity and like the opportunity that exists. I think, yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I think it's another really great reminder to live in gratitude. Our team hears me say that constantly all day, all night, but it's true. And it's appreciated. And why not? Like, again, these are, this industry propels everybody forward every single day. I mean, that's just a reminder. Jen, we know that we barged down you today. Thank you for letting us barge in on you. We know that you have a tight schedule and we have about six more minutes. So how can restaurants, what can we do? Let's talk about dining with gratitude. Absolutely, it's so important for us to be able to engage the restaurateurs, catering companies, anyone throughout the industry, because the workers in the industry look up to the management team.

50:50They look up to the owners. And when those people are the ones who are getting engaged in giving back to Giving Kitchen, it brings this awareness that not just Giving Kitchen is a resource that can help a food service worker to help them when they're in crisis, but also that it's a legitimate resource that they feel more comfortable reaching out to. So our biggest national campaign, it's called Dining with Gratitude. It's happening all October long this year, and we've already started onboarding food service operators and suppliers to help and join a national campaign to bring national awareness to Giving Kitchen for food service workers to ask for help. And in doing so, keeping us from having to turn anyone away for that lack of funding, as we talked about a little bit earlier. As we continue to grow, one of the biggest things that we need to focus on is not just being sure that the food service workers know how to find us and to ask us for help, but is to build the community that is so willing to come together to continue to support them.

51:56So through this campaign, any owner, operator, supplier can join in. They make a financial commitment, which can be done through the restaurant itself with a menu of different options for being a part of it. The burger benefit that Billy is throwing is happening right before Dining with Gratitude at the end of September. So anyone with a burger on their menu can choose to sell a burger on September 22nd, when that will be hosted. Or they can come up with their own unique way of how they would raise funds for Giving Kitchen, whether it's through product promotion in-house or through convincing their donors, I mean their diners and donors, honestly, to step up and be a part of it too. Okay. I just wanna add something. You can also, you don't have to sell burgers on that day for the burger benefit, but sometime prior to the event. And by the way, I don't really care when you do it. If you wanna sell burgers tomorrow to raise money for the Giving Kitchen. That's true. It's really hard to advertise if it's at one day though.

52:56Yeah, like don't wait until September to start helping the Giving Kitchen. I mean, you can figure out a way. Yeah, I love your idea. You have the Waffle House burger. I love that. And that you're charged a couple extra bucks for it. Not allowed to say Waffle House burger. Well. Uh. It just happens to be scattered. Seasons assist that, Waffle House. The, okay, we'll call it the burger that runs with Schmaffle House. The Giving Kitchen burger. Schmaffle House. The Giving Kitchen burger is really good. But you don't have to, you know, you don't have to wait. But even if you can't afford to do something, you can afford to give somebody else, get somebody else involved, or expose somebody else to the Giving Kitchen. Right, so it doesn't have to, there's like this, I mean look, money obviously is what makes this thing happen. No bucks, no Buck Rogers is from the right stuff. One of my favorite movies. Anyway, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. But you still can do other things to help support. So if you're doing an event, like if you're a partner with Donnie with Gratitude, the thing you can do is go get another restaurant to join.

54:01And then they can get another restaurant to join. It doesn't, like that takes no effort. You're telling me you don't have one friend in the restaurant industry that can also participate. And they don't have one friend and so on. So there's a lot of things you can do that don't necessarily mean you have to support all of the Giving Kitchen. Right, like how much money did they raise? Is the goal this year, for the whole year? The goal this year for the dining and the Gratitude Kitchen? No, all of Giving Kitchen. Like what's the- We've got, I was actually just about to comment on that. We've got a pretty big goal. We're gonna award three and a half million dollars in financial assistance to food service workers in crisis in 2024. So that means you need to raise like four and a half, four and a quarter? Yes, we're even higher than that with everything. Right, so no one's asking any restaurant owner to put up the four and a half million dollars. Right, so I mean it'd be great if somebody did, but that's not whatever we're asking. You know, what we're asking somebody to do is chip in what they can. Help where they can and not overextend themselves. You're not any good to the restaurant industry if you're out of business.

55:01So just do what you can and that'll help everything. Here's one last thing. You know, Giving Kitchen in our history, we've helped over 19,000 food service worker individuals. In 2023, we helped over 5,000 food service workers. So in the last about 16 months or so, our growth, we have helped about 40% of what we've done since our beginning has happened over the last 16 months as far as output. We've got really lofty goals. By 2030, we're gonna be helping 100,000 food service workers annually through crisis assistance and community resource referral. So this is one of those opportunities to not only fundraise, yes, it is vital, and also to educate every single employee inside a food service worker establishment, inside a food establishment across the country. So that's really where Dining with Gratitude really comes into play and can shine. Before we end, I want the last word because I have to ask Jen a question, but you need to be able to cut it. Oh no.

56:02So she's not allowed to answer? No, no, she can't, but I was saying, if Brandon does want to, I'm fascinated. So I'm in this other seat in her office and I see things from a different perspective and I'm fascinated to ask why you have a hammer and matches underneath your desk. Well, I was gonna ask what all these keys are for. I've got questions too over here. But I've been looking at this hammer and matches. That's so funny. I've actually been wondering if somebody was gonna ever notice that hammer was there. No, no, hammers matches next to bleach wipes. Okay, that adds an extra level. There's bleach wipes next to those too. Yeah. Hey, I like to get dirty. I like to use my hands. I like to clean up afterwards. Sometimes I have to kill people, burn their body, and then clean up afterwards. I'm gonna have to back out of here. I'm not turning my back on Jen when we leave this office. This was a hammer that my now deceased dog chewed on, so it's also just, it's just a hammer. It's just a hammer. Oh gosh. Okay. Matches are for the candle. What about all the keys?

57:03You should take a key. That actually was a giveaway at Team Heidi many years ago, but hand stamped in the face of each of those keys says hope. Wow. Hope. Hope for our food service worker industry. Hope for ourselves that we have hope, that we can provide hope for those who are courageous enough to ask for help and go through our journey. Very cool. I love what you guys are doing. I love your passion, and I love that this is what you've dedicated your life to. It's really something special, and it helps a whole lot of people, and if you don't see it every day, I do. I do see what you guys do, and I see it every single day. It's really amazing. Keep it up. You have major supporters on this side of the table, and we're honored to do so. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you, Billy. All right, guys. Thank you. Thanks for having us. We'll talk to you later. Peace.

58:04Peace. Do you want me to do it? Yeah. Do it, Billy. Hit it. You do it, Leah. Thank you so much. So here's the story. We had these interviews set up in Atlanta, and we, afternoon, we were like, what do you want to do? Like, we had these interviews. It was great. We had some more time, and I go, let's go to the giving kitchen and see if they can talk to us. So I texted the people over in the kitchen. I said, hey, can we come by there and record a podcast? This is like at one o'clock. And they were like, ah, did we have one scheduled? And I said, no, no, we're just here, and we had extra time. We thought we'd do it. And they scrambled, and they had like 45 minutes to do this. And we just jumped in. I did not find out until afterwards, because after this whole thing's over, we went to a really cool place in Atlanta called Breaker Breaker to hang out and just kind of decompress after a long day of interviews. And Leah came out, and she was like, so was that, like, what was that? And I said, that was just a thing we wanted to get out there when to talk. And she's like, that was, it was really fun.

59:05And she came in for the interview, and she was really, really sweet. And they just, they pivoted so quickly so that we could do this interview with you guys today. And I'm so excited for all these sponsors who are stepping up and making donations on your behalf. So if there's a sponsor out there that you've been wanting to call or you've thought about, this is the time to do it. Get out there, give them a call, check the show notes. I'm gonna put all this information in the show notes, all of the phone numbers so you can get them there. And we're just honored to be able to share this episode. And please get out there and share this episode. Also, if you're listening to this and you're still listening, go to Instagram and find the Atlanta Restaurant radio page and give us a follow. I'd love to build that up. I think we've got like 50 followers right now. So help me blow that up and let's build it. And like I said, take the post on Instagram where you see this episode and share it far and away. Let people know about the Giving Kitchen. Part of the biggest things we can do is just share this information. Hopefully today you were inspired.

01:00:07You are a restaurant owner. You're in leadership in restaurants. And you went, man, this is amazing in October. All you have to do is create a menu item, right? Create a drink. Billy over at NFA Burger has a Waffle House burger that he does and he charges an extra two bucks for it. And $2 of that burger goes to the Giving Kitchen. Every time they sell one, they get two bucks. So do that in October with their campaign. Figure out an item, something you can do that when people come in and buy it, you're gonna charge a little bit more and donate the extra money to the Giving Kitchen as something you can do to help. We would really, really, really wanna make October an amazing month to do this. I'm gonna be hosting an event at Maribor, like I said, October the 17th. And more information will be coming for that. And if you're a chef out there and you wanna donate some time or an experience or something, I'll come to your house and cook for five people. We'll cover the food and everything. We'd love to be able to put that up there as an auction item. So, or if you have any cool things laying around that you wanna donate or anything that you can do.

01:01:09We love experiences. That's what we want to be able to offer the guests for this event in a silent auction format. So again, email me brandonatnewlighthospitality.com and I will get back to you and thank you for listening. We hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.