A beloved friend and co-worker

Kitchen hero Anthony Bourdain said it best: "You can always tell when a person has worked in a restaurant. There’s an empathy that can only be cultivated by those who’ve stood between a hungry mouth and a $28 pork chop, a special understanding of the way a bunch of motley misfits can be a family."

As many of you know, our Lone Oak Grill family lost a dear friend and colleague to suicide on Thursday, July 21st. We would like to respect the privacy of our colleague's family and friends; therefore, the individual's name we are mourning will not be mentioned.

Our restaurant community and family has dealt with a lot in the past couple of years, surviving rounds of Covid, closures, financial distress, reopening to be met with people yelling at us about wearing masks, and people yelling at us to wear our masks better. Add to that the stress of working in a fast-paced and demanding environment, and you can see how many service industry workers are on edge.

The service industry ranks between the 13th and 19th for most suicides by occupation; it comes in just second in suicidal ideation, with 5.7% of workers reporting they had considered ending their lives in the last year, according to the CDC.

We simply cannot just reopen our doors to the public. Instead, we are reopening with the purpose and spirit of caring for our family. Unfortunately, many service industry workers are uninsured and cannot afford mental health services. The organization that we are choosing to donate to is the Duck Cup Memorial Fund, a local Suicide Prevention and Awareness non-Profit dedicated to ending stigma associated with mental health issues, and moving away from a crisis-based response to prevention through education. They are also helping our staff by providing much-needed grief counselors free of charge.

Please join us in donating to a cause that is extremely important to us and remember, it's okay to not be okay.

Thank you.