If you're feeling the frustration of implementing mental health initiatives in the restaurant industry, only to see minimal improvement in outcomes despite your best efforts, then you are not alone!

“Creating an environment where it's okay not to be okay and talk, to provide peer guidance, and also then to have resources available for people.” ~ Chef Patrick Mulvaney

IN THE WEEDS? IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS IN CRISIS, CALL 988, PRESS 1 FOR VETERANS, PRESS 2 FOR SPANISH

My special guest is Chef Patrick Mulvaney.

Meet the inspirational Chef Patrick Mulvaney, a culinary talent with a mission to support mental health in the restaurant world.

Hailing from Queens, New York, Patrick discovered his passion for the farm-to-table experience in Sacramento, California, where he opened his beloved restaurant, Mulvaney BNL.

With a deep understanding of the challenges faced by those in his industry, Patrick founded "I Got Your Back," a program to cultivate a supportive environment for restaurant staff.

His unwavering dedication to fostering open communication and empathy sets Patrick apart as a true advocate for change in the hospitality industry.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Gain valuable insights into the crucial role of mental health in the restaurant industry.
• Discover the remarkable Purple Hand program, designed to raise mental health awareness and support for professionals in the field.
• Grasp the unique challenges of taking on leadership positions within the restaurant industry.
• Learn effective methods for fostering a culture of vulnerability and open communication among staff.
• Identify essential crisis resources and support systems accessible to restaurant employees.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

• Visit the I Got Your Back program website to learn more about the mental health resources available for hospitality workers.
• Consider implementing the purple hand position in your workplace to provide peer guidance and support.
• Check out Not 9 to 5, an organization that provides mental health training tailored to the hospitality industry.
• Practice asking How are you doing? Really? To open up opportunities for conversation and support with colleagues and friends.
• Support local farmers and producers by shopping at farmers' markets and building relationships with those who grow and harvest our food.

“More important than being able to share is being able to accept that grace, to be able to accept the love and help that people want to offer to you.” ~ Chef Patrick Mulvaney

Dive deeper into this episode, including bonus content, links mentioned in the show, and information about other programs supporting mental health awareness in the hospitality industry; click here.

Join over 2K other culinary professionals leveling up their leadership skills by subscribing to the Chef Life Brigade Bulletin, here.

Access every episode of Chef Life Radio's "On The Dock," plus other member benefits when you join the Chef Life Brigade. Click here for more information.

The key moments in this episode are:

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:01:09) - Celebrating Sacramento's Agriculture

(00:07:17) - I Got Your Back Program

(00:09:35) - Bourdain's Death

(00:10:57) - Creating a Supportive Environment

(00:15:05) - Importance of Mental Health

(00:17:53) - The Responsibility of the Purple Hand

(00:21:27) - Directing People to Resources

(00:23:35) - Training and Mentoring

(00:25:06) - Success of the Purple Hand Program

Welcome back to the Show Chef.

This is Chef Life Radio, and my name is Adam Lamb, and I am your career

coach dedicated to supporting you on your culinary career trajectory.

This episode is about something that makes people feel just a little

bit uncomfortable mental health, and as much as I'd like to add a

trigger warning, I'm not gonna, because it's a topic that most of us.

Have ignored for a long time in one way, shape, or form.

We've all been dealing with the same problem for a very, very long time.

The business, by its very nature, engenders stress and emotional distress,

and yet for most of us, we handle it.

I'm not saying that we handle it well.

For most of the time I've been in the business, it was

always suck it up sunshine.

I got this chef until you don't.

And I don't know about you, but I would be a fool to think that it

didn't affect me, cuz it did and it affected everyone around me.

I just didn't have any tools or processes by which I could handle my

emotional distress or anyone else's.

Maybe you can recognize yourself in this scenario.

There's someone who's breaking down in the service area crying.

Instead of going over there and talking to them or asking them what's going

on, we just pivot and turn right out of there cause we got other shit to

deal with, and yet it's inescapable.

Everywhere we turn, people are having difficulty.

It's hard to consider or remember what it was like before the pandemic and

the entire world shut down, but it took something like that in order for not

only us in the industry, but the entire world to understand that, yeah, there's

a lot of shit going on in this industry and it is hard, and how the hell do you

mitigate that so that you can actually.

Not only are we present to the stress that you might be feeling, but pivoting

out to be a resource for your staff.

I remember quite clearly watching a line cook struggle to get through the

shift, standing up straight, putting his hands on his hip and breathing in.

Really, really, really, oh my God.

Because 12 hours previously I'd been sitting right next to him at the bar.

I just wasn't gonna let that show up at work and show myself as being

less than, or, you know, afflicted by something that was, you know,

perceptively within my control.

So as an industry we.

Ignored people who had emotional distress, either they couldn't handle it, wouldn't

handle it, but we would have to make a change because we couldn't be bothered

with taking the time to be human to human, to figure out what was going

on and what resources we had to bring to bear to give them some assistance.

It took Kat Kinsman prior to the pandemic to create a website called, Chefs

with issues and holy shit, don't we?

But it's not like we're the only ones.

So in this episode, we get to talk about solutions to this

particular problem that finally, but the pandemic changed all that.

Seemingly overnight, there were organizations that were out there focused

on hospitality professionals and the stress that they were being put under

the Burn Chef project, not nine to five.

I could go on and on and on, but those resources didn't

exist 18 months before that.

It took folks from outside the industry to point out to us just what

a fucked up situation we had created.

And yes, we created it because we weren't dealing with the problem and

because we weren't dealing with the problem, the problem was unknown.

Unmeasurable because nobody had made it a priority to actually

do any studies around it.

And if you don't have any studies around it, nobody's gonna give you any funding.

So it took people like our guest today, chef Patrick Mulvaney, to

actually stand in his kitchen and decide that enough was enough.

He and his wife created an amazing resource that's available to all

of us now, and you're gonna find out why he did it, what they did.

To address the problem and to create a resource internally that would

provide solutions for folks who might not necessarily be feeling it today.

So I am really proud to be able to bring you this interview with

Chef Patrick Mulvaney while he talks about the I Got Your Back

Program, and Why Should you Listen?

Because the statistics are that four out of five hospitality

professionals have been affected by mental stress and disorder.

That means in your kitchen right now, there's at least three or four people who

are struggling and you don't even know about it because they're scared as shit

to fucking show it and to talk about it.

And that's not a healthy way to be because at some point right when you need

'em the most, they're gonna break down.

Whose responsibility is that yours and mine?

So let's find out together what's possible right after these messages.

This is Chef Life Radio and I'm your host, chef Adam Lamb.

I'm a culinary career coach dedicated to assisting hospitality professionals

just like you to enjoy their careers without having to sacrifice their lives.

Be sure and grab this episode's exclusive bonus content.

The link is in the show notes.

Now let's get to the good stuff and we wanna welcome Chef

Patrick Mulvaney to the show.

Chef.

Thanks so much for making time for us.

We know how busy you are.

Good morning.

From the beautiful but Smokey West Coast.

Exactly.

How, how has the weather been?

Uh,

your way?

It's the, it's the fires, right?

The fire season is just really bad.

We've had, uh, Three employees that, uh, have been evacuated in the last week.

So Oh my God.

Yeah.

It's a lot of, lot of displacement.

It's a tough, tough time and,

you know, as if there's not enough stress already, you know, with

kind of reopening after the pandemic.

And I know just before we, uh, we went live with the recording, uh, you were

mentioning that at the height of your business at Mulvaney b and l, which is.

Funny because I was looking for the abbreviations for b and l only to

find out that it's a bank and loan.

Right.

It's

what the facility used to be.

Yes, the building.

It's the building and loan.

So we took it.

No, so the actually the restaurant's in a firehouse and the, the name of

the restaurant comes from the movie.

It's a Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart wants his whole life.

He wants to.

Get out of the small town and then at the end he realizes the small

town is where he should be and this is where it is a wonderful life.

And he runs down the street and yells, Merry Christmas, you

Wonderful old building and loan.

So I came, I came to Sacramento in the nineties for graduate school, uh, and

hated graduate school and they hated me.

But I fell in love in the year that I was here with the surrounds,

the surroundings, the farms, the communities that, that when I.

When I buy a peach, it's from Camilla, right?

When you know, next week we're having dinner to celebrate the McNamara family,

and Shawn is bringing lambs and Emily is bringing eggs from her chicken.

And Craig is bringing a box of walnuts from his organic walnut farm.

And, and just to place you for

the listeners, this is in

Sacramento?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

And we're in Sacramento, California.

And so when you're.

You're here, right?

Just you're really in the middle of the rich agricultural region in the world.

So as a chef, think about no finer sandbox to play in in the nineties.

That was a big question, right?

Like lots of questions from back east in New York when people said, what the hell

is in Sacramento other than tomatoes?

And, uh, funny politicians said, no, this is, this is where it's gonna be.

So that, so that's where the name came from.

And, uh, And it really has become, uh, a good name, right?

We're part of the community, and the community has really embraced us.

Uh,

chef you are a, you are a romantic at heart.

Yes.

Yes.

And the other, the other truth is my wife hated it.

The idea of, uh, of, she said, that's the worst marketing idea ever of a firehouse.

A firehouse That's a restaurant, naming it after a bank.

And I told her that my second favorite, uh, name that I had always thought

about was my favorite British dessert.

Spotted dick and so all of a sudden b n l moved right back to the center.

It's a fine name.

And here we are today, 15 years later.

That's fantastic.

And you've had an amazing run,

have you not?

Yeah, we've been, we've been blessed.

Right.

For sure.

It's, it's, uh, it keeps getting, keeps getting better, right.

In some ways.

Right.

The last 18 months, not withstanding, but I, I, I feel like we're getting.

We're getting more honed into it, right?

I I am.

It is.

We are getting better at it.

It just doesn't always feel like it's getting better.

I

probably get it and, and we'll get into that in a little bit,

but I just wanted to quickly mention, um, I was actually con on an interview

yesterday morning and the topic of the conversation was in relationship

with food and the interviewer asked me, Kristen Costa, who happens to be,

you know, one of our founding members of the, of the Chef Life Radio crew.

Um, thankful for her support asked, well, what does it mean to be in relationship

to food, uh, specifically around what it might look like for home cooks.

And I mentioned, you know, I'm in Nashville, North Carolina, and there

are so many farmer's markets where you get to actually meet the producers.

And like, just like you said, being in such a rich agricultural community.

To me, being in relationship with food starts all starts there and actually

creating relationship with the people who are actually intimately involved in

the grow, growing, harvesting, ranching, picking of those types of foods.

And I didn't understand when I first moved here, just how rich.

A community is for food.

And so would you kind of agree or extrapolate on the fact that like, what

it looks like for you in a very real sense of being so connected to the community

that, like you said, you know, who's bringing your eggs in, who's bringing

your lamb, and, and how telling that story really impacts your business.

So for me, I think it was obvious 25 years ago, right?

This is where I was gonna stay.

And I can say, you know, when I say tongue in cheek, people asked why, uh,

the truth is that over the last 25 years, Sacramentos have come to realize that

we are an agricultural city, right?

That we do.

And now celebrate that agriculture farmer's market.

Seven days a week.

During the summer, two weeks from now, we'll have a dinner on the

Tower bridge, which goes from the city to, uh, Yolo County, which is

where many of our crops come from.

800 people lined up and one big table, uh, to celebrate the farmers and the farms.

And to be in the center, uh, in the capital too, right?

So that extends as well to the capital.

Obviously we have a governor now who's a restaurateur, but also the

people in, uh, food and agriculture departments and farm bureaus.

As food becomes a point of pride for Sacramento, we attract more, uh,

attention and increase the conversation.

And so the relationship for food, how to be in relationship.

Is no longer just a fat chef from New York coming out and, and being different.

Right.

It, it now truly is our whole community coming together to celebrate and from that

it gives us power to drive change, right?

To raise profiles of, of the workers who sometimes aren't recognized to

during the pandemic to talk about how to feed, to drive feeding the

million and a half meals that that.

The restaurant community served over the last year and

a half to families and elders.

Right.

That was supported in five and 10 and $20 donations, uh, from

the community of Sacramento.

Sounds like a marvelous place to make your home.

And so were you from New York

City proper?

Uh, Queens and I grew up on Long Island.

Little bit of a change moving to Sacramento.

Yeah.

So, so it's, it's a little strange.

Yes.

It's not everyone is Irish here and, uh,

but do,

yeah.

That's awesome.

And the ocean is much more narrow and goes sideways.

Exactly.

They call it, they call it a river.

It's no coincidence that we're having this conversation today considering

everything that's gone on over the last.

15, 16, 18 months.

But I know that you've been working on this particular project longer than

that, so you popped up on my radar as someone who was actually, who was

taking action right where they were at, with no other resources except your

mind and your passion for health and wellness for hospitality associates.

And so can you kind of tell me what the genesis was for

the I got your back program.

Sure.

2018 was a horrible year for restaurants in Sacramento.

We lost more than 15 people to death by suicide.

We started the year off with three or four, right in the

first two months and started.

So we as chefs and restaurateurs and the old guard, if you will, started,

uh, conversation started between us organically, what's our responsibility?

What can we do about it?

And how, how do we move forward, right?

How much of this have we caused and how are we gonna be able to make it better?

And because we're tied into the community, there were resources from

people in the hospital world in, uh, public safety in the government,

uh, came to bear to start talking about it loosely in, uh, Early May.

As we started talking, there was a chef, Noah Zaka, whose family lets

me tell the story who had started to disappear and we all saw him.

He had disappeared.

We all saw him descending into, into, into, uh, trouble.

And I'd asked his mom, I sent his mom a note saying, where's Noah?

Cuz no one had seen him in six months hoping that she would

say he is with me in Wisconsin.

In rehab.

He misses everybody.

You'll see him soon.

And she sent back a note that said, we think he's homeless living by the river.

And I haven't seen him in a year.

And if you do see him, tell him that I love him and I'll do the same.

Three weeks later, Noah was in fact at the river and they found him, uh, been

there for a couple of weeks, no one knew.

And it it crystallized for us.

Like, what are we doing?

Where are we going?

Because, you know, in hospitality, that's our job, right?

We have, we have the laugh, clown laugh, right?

We do the dog and pony and so that, that shield hides much of what's behind us.

And also as a chef, we hide behind being grouchy and demanding and and running and

we're wondering how to get to the core.

And so we sat down and started to talk about it.

We had a meeting plan that was getting on a plane for New York.

And my wife called and said, Bourdain is dead.

And he, uh, spent the weekend with 15 chefs.

It was the best place, but I didn't realize how much Bourdain's death

affected the rest of society because he was to me, one of us, and came home.

And we had a meeting that Tuesday with, uh, heads of all

four major health groups here.

And they said, what are we gonna do?

Let's move this on.

Let's have a meeting and talk about it and study.

And one of my friends from a nonprofit said, wait a minute,

chef says that his world, in his world, people like to get shit done

and they don't like to waste time.

How soon can you have people here?

So 10 days after Bourdain's death, we had 15 leading chefs and restaurateurs

in our town around the table with the best minds in mental health

in Sacramento, talking about what our responsibility was, which is.

Creating an environment where it's okay not to be okay and talk

to provide peer guidance and, and also then to have resources.

Available for people.

Well, you know that in restaurants, as it turns out, we

already have those guys, right?

You have the, the waitress who's a doula, the crazy bartender,

the big cuddly chef, right?

Who you may talk to already.

And, and we, as with Noah's passing, everyone in our community

had seen how affected we were.

And so that had already been set and then the resources came in place

through the grace of people who helped us cooperate along the way.

As it crystallized, there were people who came and said, here, here it is.

It's gonna be called I got your back.

And every day in the restaurant, there will be someone who's a purple hand.

And, uh, they will be available for consultation and guidance and listening.

Uh, and, and here's how it goes.

And we left though that conference, which was in Sacramento, and my wife said, this

is great, but if we don't talk about this every day, It's not gonna be effective.

And she took a empty tee box, put four colors of construction paper on

the outside, and drew faces happy, neutral, angry, and in the weeds.

And then next to him, she put little pieces of paper.

And when you punch in in the afternoon or the morning, three times a week,

sometimes twice a week, you put a card in, how are you feeling today?

And then when you get to the lineup, we say, okay, you know, here's the specials.

Here's who's coming in.

Here's the temperature.

Nine.

Happy two, neutrals, one angry.

But Adam's always a pissed off s o b.

But there's three people who are in the weeds.

What are we going to do as a team to have a successful night?

If you're in the weeds, what can we do for you and what are you gonna learn from

tonight to help you next time when you are not in the weeds, but someone else is?

And that's it.

So

from a practical standpoint, if I'm hearing you correctly, the purple hand

is a position that changes from person to person as long as they've been trained?

Yes.

And the, the training, and we're working with, uh, not nine to five in Toronto.

And on that.

Now, on a formalized training module that's tailored specifically for

hospitality, we started with Mental Health First aid, which is geared

for, um, little more academia, right?

Uh, so not, not our world, but, uh, has, has come on.

And the, the magic happens because, not that anyone says anything at the

lineup, but when you are pulling mats or buffing silver or, uh, picking

herbs, Then there's an opportunity for conversation to come up and, and it's

important that it's just an opportunity.

It's not a demand, right?

So you can take that opportunity or not.

And as we started doing it, we saw people in engaging and starting to go in.

So at the end of 2018, which had been tough already in December, we lost, we had

four people die by suicide in four weeks.

Including again, Cassie's family.

Lets me tell the story a server in our restaurant.

And when I brought everyone back after the Christmas break to say, Cassie is gone.

And I said, what happened?

And they said, well, we don't know, but we know that, that she's died.

And they said, well, how did it work?

And you said It doesn't.

It doesn't matter.

Right?

What matters is that she's gone and.

And we're sad and we wanna deal with our feelings, but I saw everybody else

in my staff reaching out and in leaning in to each other, uh, you know, so when

I said, need to take the day off, go.

You want to go on the walk and scream, have smoke cut onions for a half

an hour so no one can see you cry.

Everything's good.

The important piece for me and the satisfactory piece was because we've

been talking about mental health.

Everybody was, was reaching out across each other in a web and coming to

me and saying, watch out for Ivan.

Noah.

Z's son was working for us.

We're worried about him.

This one is two.

They're talking more than they used to.

That one isn't talking anymore.

Busboy who are saying, I haven't seen this guy playing Call of Duty at

night on the, were worried about him so that everybody was automatically

checking up and that piece of.

It's okay not to be okay.

Meant that everybody was talking about it.

Right.

And what we say now and, and this has continued to go, it served us very

well during the pandemic, even though it was strange to take something

that happened when we were together.

The, the connections and the web remain and what we say today is,

Because I'm from New York and when you grow up and you say how you doing?

Right.

But now we've changed that to how are you doing, comma really.

And the space between comma and really offers the opportunity to let people

share with you how they're feeling.

Sure.

Given the fact

that, you know, the gift has, has to be the space, right?

The willingness to actually.

Sit back and listen instead of, you know, just kind of that false check-in because

you're, you know, on the way to the box or finishing prepping your station and stuff.

The reason I asked about the Purple Hand is my experience during Covid

was, uh, managing a hundred people in a dining department at an upscale

retirement community, which was tough in a lot of ways just because the entire

operation had to change on a dime.

And not only were we dealing with.

The stress of the residents, but we also had associates who were under an enormous

amount of stress and fear because nobody wanted to take home the disease to their,

to their families, and it fell to me.

To make sure that these meetings were happening every day or every other day.

Um, whether they were large standups or small standups, to let folks know

that, you know, compassion and grace is really important and, uh, nobody's that

important that they have to be here.

If they don't need to be here, et cetera, et cetera, then it's okay to be not okay.

But I didn't understand how much it cost me until about mid-March when I

just basically, I fried, you know, and I had to basically, Run away and do a

meditation retreat in, in Florida for a week just to get my, my heart back in

to the operation because at that point I was, you know, my heart was shut down.

I couldn't open back up.

And so this idea that that responsibility of the purple hand changes from person

to person, I think is really, really powerful because as, as the owner

operator, did you feel like a lot of those check-ins were your responsibility to

begin with?

In the beginning, yes.

That idea that, that everybody in some way takes part.

That the sticker for I got your back with the website is on the walk-in box with

all the cheese stickers so that you see it every day, that when you punch out at the

end of the night, uh, your chit has your hours and it says, are you feeling okay?

Remember, if you're not Yana, Dan and Lisa are here for you.

And then the two crisis numbers, right?

Both the text and the phone number.

That now everybody in my restaurant already has on their phones.

But, but it's a reminder, right?

That, that you can speak and, and as you say, right, the, there

is a different level, right?

When you're in leadership, particularly when you're at the helm, right?

Our job as chefs is to direct people, tell them what to do and

promise meaningful employment and work and a sense of worth and it.

And sometimes we let that get in the way of taking care of ourselves.

And, and so what we found here was that there was kind of a, a subset of those

of us who were owner operators, right?

And, and chefs and the front of our helm, just like you said, what do you do?

How do you face the fear that you feel yourself while still being

able to talk to your troops?

And so, uh, that for me was the, the support.

That my peers have offered.

Right.

The is has been really tremendous.

So does that

take a different, the, the support that you're getting from your

peers, does that effectively, is that different than I've got your back?

Or is it follow a similar

pattern?

So it is, I got your back, but it's, but it's someone who has,

um, a shared experience with you.

Yeah.

We talk about it in the kitchen.

Everyone who works for me can talk about being a dishwasher cause

we, cuz we've all done it and brag about how to be a dishwasher.

And then you become a pantry chef and you can talk about the things that you

learned there, but you're not in the club.

That includes the people who are on saute or grill on the hotline.

Right.

And then those people like, yeah, hot, badass.

Cooks are good, but they're not sous chefs.

Right.

And they don't, they don't know those problems and those headaches.

And, and the sous chef has a lot of problems and headaches, but

he doesn't have the ones of the chefs, so he can't be in that club.

And so, so that idea that those of us who are in the, the top rungs of

the club could actually speak to each other, uh, in a way that the others

would understand was important.

And it, and it comes down to.

Being vulnerable.

Right.

And, and being able to share.

More important than being able to share is being able to accept, right?

To have that grace, to be able to accept the love and help

that people wanna offer to you.

And then to go back to your, your restaurant, to your kitchen and

realize that the people who are working for you are trying to do just that.

And sometimes you have to take away.

You have to let your facade fall to let that love in.

That's a very, very

powerful comment.

And the fact that you're looking to your peers to do that as opposed to

muddying the waters by looking to anybody else, I mean, even from your

wife or, you know, sous chefs or anything like that, because they don't

have that same shared experience.

Um, in previous conversations and in learning more about the program, one of

the things that I understood is that, We're not healthcare professionals, so

while we may lead conversations or look for openings to have conversations,

it's really important to understand that we're not actually trained to

deal with these particular issues.

But I think you were the one that told me that it's really, really important

that we can direct people to resources.

And that's the, the third piece is the resources.

And you're right, we say it all the time, right?

I'm here to listen.

I'm here to get you to help, I'm here to do what I can, but I'm not there.

So when I say that, everyone in the restaurant has on their

phone the crisis numbers we do.

And what happens is I'll go in the back, say, you're, you're out having

a smoke by the, by the garbage cans.

And I say, Hey Adam, you don't look good today.

Yeah, I'm having, you know, you're not performing well.

I said, you having trouble and if you say, yep, you know what,

I am, I have a little tough time.

I said, I can't help you.

I, I, I can't help you, but I, I'm not a professional and

I won't be with you forever.

Here, gimme your phone and then type in, if you're young, I type the text line.

If you're old like us, I type the phone number and say, Hey, do, do

you want to talk to these people?

Because they're gonna, they're the ones that'll get you

resources and non-judgmental, and they're gonna help you.

Would you like to talk to them?

And sometimes they want to try it.

And I said, you can, you can do a practice round.

And if they say no, I said, do you mind if I, you wanna

see what it looks like, right?

I'll call 'em.

And then I'll just press the buttons and boom, they come on.

Call 9 1 1 if it's an emergency.

Nope.

And 30 seconds later, Hey, who am I talking to?

Hi, this is Patrick here with a buddy who might not, who might

want some help some days Sure.

About how it works.

Do you mind if we go on speaker and have a dry run?

Not at all.

How are you feeling today, Patrick?

Are you safe?

Are you healthy?

What's your challenge?

Here's my challenges.

I don't know where to go or what to do.

Here's some places I would recommend.

Okay, cool.

Thanks very much.

Good.

Click hang up.

Give him the phone back and say you have this number in your phone.

Save it.

Call it pizza.

Call it Chef Life.

Call it whatever you want cuz I'm not gonna be with you

all the time, but now I know.

That you have a resource with you in your pocket 24 7.

That's

so powerful for me because I'm a huge proponent of modeling

and role play as an effective way of training and mentoring.

Like sometimes there's no situations that are, that there's

absolutely no other call except to.

Show somebody what this might look like, especially in a difficult situation

where they're really kind of put back on their heels in a safe environment so

that they know what to do as opposed to, you know, letting their emotion run away

with themselves at the at the moment and maybe end up getting fired because they

said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

But this idea that you could actually pick up the phone, dial the number, and

just kind of walk through the process with them, and now it's in their phone.

Permanent, well, semi permanently, I guess you would say.

Which two crisis numbers.

Do your staff have

text line 7 4 1 7 4 1 and you text hope or help

or you can text pretty much any word and they'll get back to you.

And then the, uh, crisis line.

And let me make sure that I don't mess up.

I don't mean to sit you on the spot.

Nope.

No, no.

Cause I usually remember it, but I don't want to say it wrong.

Okay.

And I actually do have it on a suicide prevention 1 802 7 3 8 2 5 5.

1 802 7 3 8 2 5 5 and 7 4 1, 7, 4 1.

Anywhere in America you can text and the same thing happens.

That happens on the phone.

Boom.

Hi, this is Doris.

Who am I talking to?

And you can just, you can just punch it in

and I think the 7 4 1 7 4 1 number is, if I'm not, uh, mistaken, is

from our friends from across the pond at the Burnt Chef Project, correct?

Yes.

That's where it started.

Yep.

Chris

Hall.

Way to go, man.

And now withstanding the pain, uh, of the loss.

That, you know, the entire community just, you know, had to

go through losing these people.

How has the implementation of this particular program, like what evidence

are you seeing that it's actually working?

So, so after that year, so people started in our

restaurants, so we expanded what we were doing at, at the b and l to

another 15 restaurants in Sacramento.

Um, the people who are in mental health for our profession have said the

program has changed the way we speak about mental health in Sacramento,

widely, for me, most important is that people talk about mental health.

People say, I can't come to work cuz I'm too stressed.

People say, I'm concerned about you.

Because you're dancing with the devil too much, and not only just

in our restaurant, but everywhere.

And so the conversations that used to be flip and covered right behind

our glass wall, now, at least in our world of, of the restaurant, those

conversations are different and those conversations have changed and people,

other people have taken action too.

Right?

There's now an organization that's been tilted up that has.

Group, they've been Zoom for the last year and a half, but now they're going

back to in-person group therapy sessions with a licensed social worker for

regular restaurant workers, females, uh, Hispanics, L G B T for 10 sessions

for $10 a session, and then a referral on a rolling scale to private therapy

sessions for those who need further help.

Everybody now knows when this began.

My phone lit up all the time to say, chef got someone in crisis.

What do we do?

All right, let's walk through it.

Now there's a website.

Now they know, okay, here's where we're going.

Here's what we're doing.

Get them to this person.

I feel badly for.

Umberto is the chief psychiatrist at.

Kaiser Permanente here, and he was dumb enough to gimme his cell phone.

And so there was a lot of texts like, all right, um, Alberto, I need some help.

Where are we going?

But now, because it's because it's a topic of conversation, right?

Really a lot of it is just taking away the shame, right?

And saying, this is, this is who we are and these are the challenges

we face, and let's step up to it.

So really when we talk about, you know, the 12 steps, one of the, one of the.

Important pieces that we take is that if this is true, it's okay to say, hi,

my name is Patrick and I'm an alcoholic.

It's okay to say hi.

My name is Patrick and I'm having a challenge with mental health issues.

Well,

thanks, man.

I mean, I feel blessed cuz I, I, I feel like, uh, you and I are old

friends for some reason, but, uh, we, I literally could spend hours talking

to you and, uh, I reserve the right to, you know, come and hang out,

uh, when we're in Sacramento next.

Absolutely.

We look forward to you.

We have a guest house out back here.

And you know, we are compatriots, right?

Cuz we both live in places that have Sierra Nevada breweries.

Exactly.

You know how right that is.

And God, man, there's, if there's ano, if one more brewery opens up in Asheville, I

mean, I don't know what they're gonna do for water, but I thank you for your time.

Uh, I thank you for all your efforts.

I thank you for your standing in the world.

You and I will be speaking hopefully often because I got a lot to learn

from you and, um, to pick your brain about how we can start moving

some of this to North Carolina.

Because there's a need everywhere.

And the more of us that are showing up, the easier it is to, uh, to get going.

And the, and the truth is that, that a lot

of this we're, uh, dumbo, right?

We're the feather in dumbo's hat, right?

The truth is you have it inside yourself all the time.

And all you need to do is believe in yourself.

That's it for this episode of Chef Life Radio.

If you enjoyed the episode and you want to hear more, then you want to

grab the link to the exclusive bonus content we recorded and the link is in

the show notes here at Chef Life Radio.

We believe that working in a kitchen should be demanding.

It just shouldn't have to be demeaning.

It should be hard.

It just doesn't have to be harsh.

We believe that it's possible to have more solidarity and less suck it up sunshine,

more compassion, less cutthroat island.

We believe in more partnership and less put up or shut up

more family and less fuck You.

Stand tall and frosty brothers and sisters, but consider for a moment.

For all the blood, sweat, and effort you put into what you do.

At the end of the day, it's just some stuff on a plate.

None of it really matters.

Doesn't define you as a person or make you any more special or less than anyone else.

It's just the dance that we're engaged in.

So we might as well laugh and enjoy every bit of it.

Or didn't you know that the purpose of your life should be to enjoy it?

Like it.

Happy, I love it.

I'm humble.

Goddamn.

Glory Foxwell I don't live on now.

Reach out to the show at facebook.com/chef Life Radio,

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Please take a moment and give us a thumbs up and write a review.

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Thanks for listening.

Until the next episode, be well and do good.

This episode was produced by me.

Adam Lamb.

It was recorded in the basement.

Bunker Studio, EM Bardo, North Carolina.

Co-Produced by Thomas Stinson of pod like.com.

Chef Life Radio is a production of Realignment Media.