Attend the next F+B Community Check-In on Monday August 12 at File Systems of Coffee, 6051 Melrose Ave, from 7:30-9pm. RSVP via DM to Kristel Arabian @kriskracks. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe checked all the boxes you\u2019re supposed to, to be successful,\u201d Noui said, adding \u201che was a good-looking dude with great people around him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you’re not right in your mind, you\u2019re not right in your spirit\u2014what do you really have?\u201d<\/p>\n
Channeling grief into gathering <\/p>\n
When news broke about Standing\u2019s death, weeks after Whitener\u2019s, \u201cIt\u2019s almost, you know, when someone tells a bad joke or something and the room gets quiet, and you’re like, \u2018Oh my God, who’s going to say the next thing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She made a passive comment about \u2018everyone needing a hug’, Arabian said. ‘I’m like, yeah, how do we do that?’<\/p>\n
\u2014 Kristel Arabian<\/p>\n
Arabian had met Noui through the Santa Monica farmers\u2019 market network some years back. She remembers speaking to Noui about how their grieving community needed support. <\/p>\n
She made a passive comment about ‘everyone needing a hug’, Arabian said. “‘I’m like, yeah, how do we do that?”<\/p>\n
The two organized an event which they\u2019ve since dubbed the \u201cF+B Community Check-In\u201d and took over the back patio at Tabula Rasa, the Hollywood wine bar and industry hangout whose name translates to a \u201cblank slate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than just creating another customary eulogic Instagram post, \u201cI channeled my grief into gathering,\u201d Noui said. Tabula Rasa, which has a \u201cdark, grown and sexy feeling,\u201d is responsible for putting a lot of first-rate L.A. pop-ups on the map, including Burgers by Standing and Broad Street Oyster, according to Noui.<\/p>\n
It was a nice place to bring out \u201cour people\u201d who spend most of their time in the back of those type of places, she said. <\/p>\n
The next event was held at the quaint and cozy Now Serving, the Chinatown cookbook store run by Ken Concepcion, a former Wolfgang Puck chef at Cut. The store, which \u201cgives cottage vibes with a sick library,\u201d is also a haven for public discussions and meeting places for local makers and creatives.<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771189426_612_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Alyssa Noui and Kristel Arabian<\/p>\n
For that first event, Arabian created a flier in Canva and went through her contacts looking for sponsors willing to donate food. But they didn\u2019t want it to be just a grieving party, so Noui and Arabian sought another angle.<\/p>\n
They found the Southern Smoke Foundation, a Houston-based nonprofit offering free \u201cBehind You\u201d therapy sessions specifically for food and beverage workers. Currently operating their mental health program in ten states, the foundation’s sessions are administered locally by grad students at California Lutheran University, seeking to fulfill their curriculum hours. The non-profit also offers emergency relief grants for industry workers. The only conditions are that they work a minimum of 30 hours a week \u2014 across multiple jobs, if necessary \u2014 and that they\u2019ve worked in the industry for at least six months.<\/p>\n
After Noui and Arabian went through the Southern Smoke Foundation offerings at the first meeting, a fishbowl was put out where attendees could share anonymously anything they felt compelled to bare, Arabian said. One person wrote, “I know that the food matters, but when will I start mattering?”<\/p>\n
“It f\u2014ing crushed me,” Arabian recalled. Others used the opportunity to bounce around career concerns: questions related to pricing, tipping, and other ways they could come together to improve the industry or support one another.<\/p>\n
One person wrote, ‘I know that the food matters, but when will I start mattering?’<\/p>\n
\u2014 Attendee at the F+B Community Check-in event<\/p>\n
Noui doesn\u2019t need the Southern Smoke offerings herself. She has motion picture insurance as part of a local craftsperson union and has just a $5 copay for counseling. She couldn\u2019t afford it otherwise, she said. Now the question is, \u201chow do I hold the door open for more people to have access to it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cutting through the stigma<\/p>\n
Southern Smoke founder, the Houston-based, James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd, 51, says if you talk to any cook they\u2019ll tell you the same thing: \u201cI still hear the ticket machine in my head at night. You know, you can hear that, geeegeee, geeegeee sound. It doesn’t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foundation was originally conceived through a Houston festival intended to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. Shepherd was trying to help a sommelier friend battling the disease. The participating chefs and organizers started speaking about opening up the mental health dimension before the 2018 festival, right after the suicide of superstar TV chef Anthony Bourdain.<\/p>\n
Within a few days of the celebrity chef\u2019s death, a friend of one of the festival chefs also had taken his own life. So, \u201cwith twenty-something of the best chefs in the country coming in,\u201d Shepherd said, there was a special opportunity to have that conversation.<\/p>\n
The profession will always be a high-pressure one, but that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t mitigate harm where possible, he said. Beyond the obvious barriers of accessibility and affordability, there\u2019s also the built-in cultural stigma around asking for help. Since the Southern Smoke therapy sessions are conducted via telehealth, \u201cnobody needs to know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kait Leonard, 28, a freelance chef, producer and co-owner of BOH Creative, a marketing agency that works with restaurants and their staffs, decided to attend the second Check-In event at Now Serving, although she wasn\u2019t sure if she was in the right headspace beforehand.<\/p>\n
In 2023, a couple of months after cofounding her company, Leonard fell into a deep depression and admitted herself to the ER with suicidal ideation. She wasn\u2019t sure if she was up for attending the meetup, but decided her presence could help someone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike ‘I went to the ER for, you know, I really didn’t want to be here. And that’s okay’.\u201d Ultimately, her hope most importantly was that these meetups would be a positive outlet and tool for her clients, to help create a healthier workplace. \u201cI wish something like this existed when I was first starting to work in kitchens,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Brandon Gray, 38, chef and founder of Brandoni Pepperoni, the Los Angeles inspired pizza pop-up, has attended multiple Check-In events thus far. \u201cA lot of trauma bonding,\u201d took place at said events, he said, adding \u201ceveryone there has their own story, there\u2019s a lot of overlap\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about just figuring out how to be better,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it needs to be better\u2014the people who have been cooking as long as I have, it’s not fun anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Checking in about mental health<\/p>\n
The \u201chospitality industry is excessive,\u201d says Noui. But it\u2019s important to remember that those who are drawn to it, either back-of-house or front, are those who naturally, or are conditioned to, put themselves second. It\u2019s those inherent \u201cmasochistic qualities that everyone has,\u201d the same ones we see \u201cromanticized in shows like the Bear\u201d that come \u201cout of service \u2014 out of wanting to serve.”<\/p>\n
At Kitchen Culture Recruiting, the company she started, Arabian says she makes it a point to check in with potential hospitality candidates about their mental health, \u201cbut it\u2019s not something you can hit chefs over the head with,\u201d she said. \u201cIt takes trust,\u201d from someone who\u2019s been through it. But there are limits, she says. \u201cI\u2019m not a psychologist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arabian remembers her first time working in the kitchen as a cook, after feeling pushed by her family to become a pharmacist. For the first time, it felt like she was doing what she was supposed to be doing. She\u2019d go on to work back-of-house for approximately ten years reaching the level of executive chef. In her last chef role she was working as executive sous chef at a bakery and pizzeria. But after working in front of a wood-burning stove for as much as 110 hours a week, 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week, she developed a chronic illness and had to leave. The safety net just wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
While any job can be anxiety-producing, \u201ccooking is one job that has so much \u201cmachismo and bravado\u201d around it that physically, \u201cwhen you become ill, it is life-changing,\u201d she said. Rather than seek out another chef job, she became a front-of-house and back-of-house recruiter. She remembers saying, \u201cUntil I find a really great job for myself, in the meanwhile, I’m going to make sure that chefs are taken care of.\u201d Fourteen years later, she says, “I\u2019m still trying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noui has been workshopping her own community resource tool. She bought a phone number that she\u2019s calling the \u201cMy Chef\u201d line, 855-My-Chef-8, which she also had printed on pens. This hotline can be used for everything from finding someone to fill a job, like a chef, stylist, or dishwasher or for accountability checks.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Shepherd says it’s important for people to know there is help. He’s not a fan of all the emerging depictions of extreme kitchen conditions put out there today. \u201cThere’s these new TV shows that glorify this [toxic workplace elements] when an industry is trying to get away from it\u2026I think it\u2019s wrong. Unless at the end of it you say, \u2018hey, you know what? Therapy is available.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insane hours, the toxic work environments, low pay and stringent standards \u2014 plenty of ink and film have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-285767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}