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10 Women-Led Restaurants Changing Hospitality
A round-up of restaurants with women at the helm who are doing inspiring work.
The face of the restaurant industry is changing. Long dominated by men in both the kitchen and in ownership, the last few years have seen big changes in hospitality. In fact, restaurant owner data shows that nearly half of all restaurants are owned or co-owned by women and one third are majority-owned by women.
Despite the industry’s connotation of being a boys’ club, women make up an essential part of today's restaurant industry. Here are ten women-led restaurants that are doing particularly interesting work: from advocating for working mothers in the industry to reimagining restaurant hours to diversifying chef representation in the kitchen.
1. The Duck & The Peach
Hollis Wells Silverman | Washington, DC
What To Know: The Duck & The Peach challenges the traditional restaurant compensation model with a 22% service charge instead of gratuity.
Owner Hollis Wells Silverman recognizes that the American tipping system is rooted in bias, sexism, and discrimination. She believes in creating a more equitable pay structure for her team. To combat the pay disparity between back-of-house staff and front-of-house staff, Silverman instituted a standard 22% service charge on all dine-in checks and events. This allows the restaurant to pay the entire hourly staff a higher hourly rate. The move has led to press coverage and a conversation about tipping transparency in the industry.
2. Reem’s California
Reem Assil | Oakland, California
What To Know: Owner Reem Assil built a one-year apprenticeship program that provides workshops, training, and leadership to restaurant workers from BIPOC communities.
When the pandemic hit, Reem Assil noticed a big change in how the restaurant industry was approaching racism, patriarchy, and worker’s rights. But “no one was asking the right people,” she said. To her, the people closest to the challenges that have long faced the industry were those from BIPOC communities, and they were the ones who could craft sustainable changes.
Assil partnered with Emerson Collective, an organization focused on social change, to create a one-year apprenticeship program called Sumoud, which means “steadfast resilience” in Arabic. The goal is to provide workshops, training, and leadership development to restaurant workers who are immigrants, Black, Indigenous, people of color, and women. The conversations are centered around topics like collective leadership, participatory governance, and how to build more worker-owned restaurants. Assil’s work has been recognized by Bon Appétit, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
3. Pizzeria Lola
Ann Kim | Minneapolis, Minnesota
What To Know: Chef-owner Ann Kim is the first woman from Minneapolis to win the James Beard Award for Best Chef Midwest.
Ann Kim went from being a first time restaurant owner in 2010 at age 37 with no formal culinary training to winning the James Beard award for Best Chef: Midwest in 2019. She was the first person of color and first woman from Minneapolis to receive the distinction. In the past few years, she’s been featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, has spoken out against AAPI hate, and spoke out in favor of taking a sabbatical. With four restaurants under her belt and a mantra of “fuck fear,” Kim is a great example of what it means to push boundaries and make big changes — even later in life.
4. Clementine
Annie Miler | Los Angeles, California
What To Know: In October 2021, the restaurant announced a break from Facebook and Instagram. Clementine questions the role social media needs to play in running a successful restaurant.
“Does it have to be the way it is?”
That’s one of the questions Clementine’s chef-owner Annie Miler asked in her announcement that her bakery-café would no longer be posting on Facebook or Instagram.
Not only is Miler the chef and owner of the Los Angeles spot, but she’s also a parent and was growing increasingly concerned about the role social media was playing in society — particularly the impact it was having on teen girls. So, she opted out.
Miler cited a recently published series from The Wall Street Journal and shared that continuing to be active on social media was not in line with Clementine’s values of authenticity and being community-centered. The announcement proposed three alternative ways to support them and stay in touch: 1) visiting in person, 2) checking out their website, and 3) subscribing to their mailing list for email updates.
5. Her Place Supper Club
Amanda Shulman | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
What To Know: The Philadelphia restaurant is only open Monday through Friday to give staff weekends off for a better work-life balance.
After years of working in restaurants with little time off, chef-owner Amanda Shulman knew that she wanted to reimagine working hours as soon she opened up her own place. This came to fruition in 2021 when she built her first restaurant — aptly named Her Place Supper Club — which is closed on weekends. The spot takes walk-ins only on Monday nights and closes by 9pm. For the remaining weekdays, there are two seatings (6pm and 8:30pm) that are reservation-only. The result has been more flexibility, better working conditions, and improved staff happiness. And there’s more ingenuity to come from the concept. “We try new stuff all the time, and see what sticks, and that’s part of the beauty of not being a traditional restaurant,” Shulman shared.
6. Flavors From Afar
Meymuna Hussein-Cattan | Los Angeles, California
What To Know: Each month, Flavors From Afar highlights a featured chef who is a refugee or asylum seeker in an effort to share culinary traditions, cultures, and stories.
As an East African refugee who’s been in the U.S. since 1984, Meymuna Hussein-Cattan knows how difficult it can be to transition to a new country. In 2010, she founded a nonprofit organization with her mother called the Tiyya Foundation, which supports refugee, immigrant, and displaced indigenous communities. A decade later, in 2020, Hussein-Cattan opened Flavors From Afar. The restaurant features refugee chefs and their cuisine from around the globe. She’s met most of the spotlighted chefs through her work with her nonprofit, and 40% of profits from Flavors From Afar are reinvested in Tiyya Foundation programming.
7. The Musket Room
Camari Mick & Mary Attea | New York, New York
What To Know: The Musket Room’s entire leadership team is women, including two James Beard-nominated chefs.
Named one of the 50 best restaurants in the country by The New York Times in 2022, The Musket Room is no stranger to national attention. The restaurant opened in 2013 and within four months had received a Michelin star. Owner Jennifer Vitagliano restructured the ownership and management team in 2020, hiring Executive Chef Mary Attea and Executive Pastry Chef Camari Mick. The all-women leadership team played a pivotal role in helping the concept maintain their Michelin star throughout the pandemic, and both Attea and Mick were nominated as semi-finalists for the 2022 and 2023 James Beard Awards.
8. Atelier Crenn
Dominique Crenn | San Francisco, California
What To Know: Atelier Crenn is the only restaurant led by a female chef to earn three Michelin stars.
From earning her third Michelin star (the only female chef in the United States to do so) to going meat-free on her menus in an effort to “effect real environmental change,” Dominique Crenn has always been at the forefront of innovation in the culinary industry. The ever-evolver, she’s led at Atelier Crenn for over a decade and recently redesigned the entire space. It’s a more modern look for the restaurant that’s home to a 12-course pioneering pescatarian tasting menu.
9. Parachute
Beverly Kim | Chicago, Illinois
What To Know: Chef-owner Beverly Kim launched a nonprofit to support the advancement of working mothers in the culinary industry.
Parachute’s chef-owner Beverly Kim is the mother of three kids and, since 2014, has navigated motherhood along with restaurant ownership and the challenges of those intersecting life choices. Kim has faced her fair share of hardship in these areas: like wearing her newborn in a sling to prep before service and developing mastitis during particularly long restaurant shifts because of an inability to pump.
In 2020, Kim created The Abundance Setting, a nonprofit that provides support to mothers working in the restaurant industry. The organization’s meal relief program supplies three culinary industry mothers with three meals a week for their families for a total of three months. Mentorship opportunities are also coordinated, and the group maintains a curated list of childcare resources that include evening, weekend, and overnight availability.
10. Nightbird
Kim Alter | San Francisco, California
What To Know: Kim Alter is a leading voice in restaurant sustainability, and waste management is an integral part of how Nightbird’s tasting menu is created.
Chef-owner Kim Alter is known for her whole-animal butchery and cooking method at Nightbird. That technique takes shape throughout the restaurant’s ten-course tasting menu, which includes five “reflection” courses: small bites that incorporate ingredient scraps from the previous course that would have otherwise been wasted. “Sustainability should drive every restaurant I believe,” said Alter in 2019. “It saves the environment and money.”
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