Chef John Fraser, who owns restaurants in New York, California and Florida, is giving back to restaurant workers with a new initiative called "The Industry Table," which provides hospitality employees the chance to eat at restaurants at cost. Chef Fraser explained the program to Cheddar News. 

<div class="block">Chef John Fraser, who owns restaurants in New York, California and Florida, is giving back to restaurant workers with a new initiative called &quot;The Industry Table,&quot; which provides hospitality employees the chance to eat at restaurants at cost. Chef Fraser explained the program to Cheddar News. </div>

Wake Up With Cheddar

Chef John Fraser Giving Back to Restaurant Workers Through New Initiative

Chef John Fraser is a Michelin star recipient owner of restaurants in New York, California Florida. And he's also giving back to restaurant workers with the new initiative, Shannon Lanier. Has more. Good morning, Shannon. Good morning. That's right. We are here at, at the Wall Street Hotel and I am with chef John Frasier, as you mentioned, a Michelin star chef and we just made this amazing meal, but check out all of these other meals on the table. It looks amazing. So go ahead. Chef, tell us what we're working with here. So as you know, we just made our breakfast, fried rice with bacon and mushrooms, poached egg. We have eggs and co coats uh with lamb sausage and, and toasted baguette, our tartine with um be beet, uh goat cheese and grapes. Wow, that sounds amazing. For pastries. We have a perry breast with lavender and berries and it's beautiful and a lot larger than the ones you see in France. A lot of times they're smaller. Right. Right. We give you a tool to cut it. Uh We have our croissant Classic and we have some uh fried cookies. OK? So I'm gonna start digging in as you talk to me more about this because you feel like, oh, that's the smart way you start with the dessert. My kids are watching. So I'm gonna start with dinner just so they know. All right. So I'm gonna start tasting all of these amazing dishes. But I want you to talk to us more about an initiative that you started to make sure people in the industry can actually come in here and taste these dishes as well. Thank you. Yeah. So we started an initiative called The Industry Table. Um We've now gone national to our restaurants in uh Tampa, Florida and West Hollywood, Los Angeles. That is amazing. Yeah, I like this. Good, good way to start today. Um Yeah. So we, we realized through the pandemic that hospitality workers will hit some of the hardest industry, right? And we launched this initiative where uh hospitality workers can come and dine at our restaurant at costs. Uh They gotta pay for booze but they pay at cost for our food. Now, when you say at cost, what are we talking about? What kind of discount percent discount? 70% discount? That is huge. So you go on to our, our website uh JF restaurants dot com and you fill out the form uh ask you where you work, uh how you heard about it and um join us, you're like a VIP, you're like our family. Um All we ask for is feedback and for you to pass along the word. Now, that is important and such a, a big initiative because we're talking about even at your Michelin Star restaurants, they can go in and get a 70% discount. Why was this important for you to get back to this? It's a few things. I mean, you know, the price of dining out has skyrocketed in all of our restaurants. We've had to raise our prices and a lot of my education came by eating in other people's restaurants. We learned so much by sharing a table with one another in other people's restaurants. And if I was a cook coming up in this moment, I think it would be very difficult for me to get the same amount of experience given the prices. So, uh we launched this about four months ago. Um We just gone national this week. Um We're excited about the expansion and it's been pretty busy. I hear as well trying to get these tables that you have, which is you gotta get on the list and then they can act in that's it. And I think that's kind of the, the biggest challenge that we're finding right now and we hope solve it in the next couple of weeks is the mechanics from signing up to making the reservation to making sure that everyone is all set up. But once we get the people into the restaurants, you know, they're like, they become part of our community. We're able to find out where they work, what they're all about and the response has been great and hopefully start spreading the word as well. OK. So how do we eat this? We're gonna cut this with, check this out a huge spare of scissors going against the plate. OK? It's softer than I was thinking it is. OK. Oh, that was awesome. And it looks so pretty. It's almost too pretty to mess up. I'm like, like, I don't wanna mess it up, but I'm gonna mess it up and try this delicious meal and also talk to me about what you hope that your initiative will do for the industry. Do you think? Or hope at least that it will spread to other restaurants and they'll start to do it as well? Yeah, I think so. You know, we, we're trying to figure out right now. Um, how exactly to reach people where they'll find us and then how to make the reservations to make it seamless once we sort that out, um, we hope to offer the service to others and hopefully you spread the word. Well, I am gonna be spreading the word because this food is delicious. Thank you so much for having us here this morning. Make sure you come check it out and tell your industry worker friends to come on down and well or to any of your restaurants. And Hanna will tell you the website right after this all right back to you guys. I will thank you Shannon and of course chef John Fraser, restaurant workers and up to one friend or family members can book reservations for the industry table at JF restaurants dot com. I love the chef Fraser is giving back. I love that too and delicious stuff as well.