When Founding Farmers opened its first restaurant in 2008, terms like sustainability and farm-to-table were just starting to seep into mainstream diners’ consciousness, and employee well-being was rarely discussed. But the mission-driven company made farmers and employees a top priority at their restaurants from the beginning.
The restaurant group, which now has eight locations mainly in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia area, has been proudly farmer-owned and has offered health and other benefits to its employees from the beginning.
“Wouldn’t the best restaurant in the world make the guests and the employees all feel the love of hospitality so that they can all be their best? Like, how is that not logical?” Dan Simons, a Founding Farmers co-founder, told Restaurant Hospitality.
Today, many of the environmental standards and employee services the restaurant group has offered for years have become much more commonplace, Simon said.
While Simons admits the most diners don’t want to hear about the restaurant’s latest composting ventures and would rather just enjoy their burger, when the time is right, he isn’t afraid to speak out about issues that some might find controversial or taboo. Recently, this has included addressing menopause in the workplace.
“Menopause will affect 100% of women … at some point in their lives, and a large percentage of those women who go through menopause will deal with symptoms that can be disruptive to their day-to-day, which could be disruptive to how they are at work,” Simons said. “So, if something will affect 100% of women, which for me is more than 50% of my workforce, wouldn’t I have to be negligent to not learn about it myself, educate myself, my team, and then provide support and resources?”
While something like addressing menopause in the workplace might not seem at first glance like a restaurant issue, if it’s an issue for diners or employees, Simons argues, it is a restaurant issue.
“That’s all a restaurant is,” he said. “A collection of people coming together.”
Stream the full conversation with Simons above.
