Temperance Kitchen pop-up series in St. Louis raises awareness of addiction in the restaurant industry

Launched by Mainlander sous chef Max Bredenkoetter, Temperance Kitchen is a new pop-up event series that aims to raise awareness of addiction issues in the hospitality industry. The pop-up’s first two dinners will take place on April 15 and May 20, with proceeds to be donated to Ben’s Friends, a network that provides support and resources for hospitality professionals who are seeking sobriety.

Temperance Kitchen just announced its second event, a multicourse dinner that will be held at Mainlander on Monday, May 20. Tickets are $135 (inclusive of tax and tip) and will go on sale on Saturday, March 9, via Eventbrite.

If you’re interested in attending, set a reminder, because demand for this one is likely to be strong. Tickets for the first Temperance Kitchen dinner, which will take place at Mainlander on April 15, sold out within 24 hours, with the majority of tickets snapped up in the first five minutes. The first dinner will see Bredenkoetter joined in the kitchen by Ben Grant of Bijoux Chocolates and Adam Dove (formerly of Bulrush and Vicia). Behind the bar, Jiana West from The Fortune Teller Bar and Téo Gibbs (a former Sauce One to Watch honoree, who most recently launched broth and juice pop-up Chiron) will be making nonalcoholic beverages.

Bredenkoetter said that he’s always sought out ways to get involved in charitable initiatives. “It just makes me feel good. It's something I love doing,” he said. At a little over 1,000 days sober, he felt moved to take action around the issues of sobriety and addiction in the restaurant business. “Through my time in the industry, I've obviously seen quite a bit of alcohol and drug misuse,” he said. “I started looking into local resources that were specifically catered toward the restaurant industry related to addiction and sobriety resources or meetings, and I just wasn't finding many things that I could get involved in.”

While Bredenkoetter couldn’t find many local resources with a focus on the restaurant industry, his search took him to Ben’s Friends, a national network of hospitality industry workers that hosts meetings and provides resources to support peers who are facing addiction and seeking recovery. Ben’s Friends doesn’t currently have in-person meetups in St. Louis, but they do run Zoom meetings at various times throughout the day that are open to everyone in the industry.

“Our work time is others’ play time,” Bredenkoetter said. “So there's not as many options for Alcoholics’ Anonymous or other groups, because a lot of them are going to be tailored to the hours of different nine-to-five industries. Ensuring there are spaces that fit restaurant industry hours I feel is an important thing to have available.”

Bredenkoetter said there’s also a need for systems of support that acknowledge the unique context that hospitality professionals seeking sobriety face. “It's pretty hard to find a niche within the industry where you're never going to be around alcohol,” he said. “If you're in the front of house, you may still have to be serving alcohol and have a different level of comfort and safety around it, or you may have people in the food and beverage industry with a long history of sobriety who have different strategies for being around alcohol.”

Changing the culture around alcohol use within the hospitality industry is also a challenge. “There's kind of an acceptance in the restaurant industry of alcohol use, you look at traditions such as a shift drink – where everybody gets a free drink after a shift – which is still prevalent in some restaurants,” Bredenkoetter said. That can lead to peer pressure, or simply introduce temptation.

Hospitality industry workplaces can also be high-pressure environments, and that can contribute to workers falling into the habit of using alcohol to decompress. Bredenkoetter said systemic changes in the industry could help lower the level of stress experienced by workers and create a more supportive environment, although he believes the days of the tyrannical chef screaming at employees and throwing objects around are numbered. “That’s on it’s way out, thankfully,” he said.

“I do think that, in general, the industry is becoming more aware of addiction,” Bredenkoetter said. Substance misuse issues can cause talented people to leave the industry, at a time when staffing restaurants is a real challenge. Some advocates are calling for an end to the shift drink tradition, and Bredenkoetter believes that would be at least a step in the right direction. “As we move away from those types of things, I think it will become easier and easier over time for those who are sober to stay in the industry, just making it a much more comfortable environment for individuals,” he said.

While the first two Temperance Kitchen events follow a multicourse dinner format, Bredenkoetter said he will change up the format to ensure the events are accessible to anyone who wants to support. “We want to do a wider array of events that cater to every price point, we want to do some a la carte events where maybe you're coming and getting a $10 sandwich,” he said.