Dear friends and restaurant family,

We recently had a close call with one of the restaurant industry's finest employees. Antoine Mcelveen is a server at Red Robin in upstate NY. Before Red Robin, he was a server at Friendy’s for 25 years, so those that know him, know how hard he has worked the past 27 years. Antoine was scheduled to be at work for a double on Saturday, June 11th and did not show up for his shift. Now again, those of you that know Antoine, know he is ALWAYS on time, and typically even there 45 minutes before his shift. Many of his Team Members were extremely concerned that he wasn’t there and couldn’t be reached by phone, so the team worked together to find out where he lives, and headed to his home to check on him. What a great decision that turned out to be! It turns out that Antoine had a stroke earlier in the day, was incapacitated in the back of his apartment, and had no way to contact anyone. He was rushed to the hospital and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Thankfully Antoine is already on the road to recovery.

What we are asking of the Red Robin Family, the restaurant family in general, and our loved ones is some help for Antoine. He’ll need help in covering his rent, utilities, and food for the next 3-4 months, as he’ll be unable to work while he’s on the long road to recovery. He has no other income source other than his serving job, and very little savings to deal with recovering from this tragic event. Missing 3 or 4 months of work would prove catastrophic without our help. Antoine lives on his own and has no family in the area. His Red Robin family will be helping him through his treatment, supplying food and company as best we can, but we’re asking anyone who can help financially, to please help us support him during this time. Antoine is the sort of person who would pay it forward without a second thought.

Thank you for caring,

Your extended restaurant family at Red Robin.