By some accounts, 80% of the members of the food and beverage industry have documented struggles with mental health issues. At the same time, 17% report problems with substance abuse. While it is certainly not just a Savannah-Hilton Head Island problem, there are people in this area trying to help however they can.

Jesse talks to Rae Robertson, Savannah chef-about what she has seen, heard and experienced in her decade plus in the industry and more importantly what is available to help those who don’t know where to find it.

JB: Welcome back to the Eat It and Like It podcast. My name is Jesse Blanco, host of not only this podcast, but Eat It and Like It with Jesse Blanco is a television show, we are 16 seasons deep on that guy. You can find us weekends here in the Savannah/Hilton Head area on WJCL TV, or if you don’t live in the area, you could check us out on YouTube, our channel is Eat It and Like It. We have a very interesting conversation to be had here today as we enter the holiday season, and joining me to do so is my friend Rae Robertson. How are you? 

RR: I’m great. 

JB: Welcome. Rae is a local chef here in Savannah. We’ve been talking on and off for a few months now, you’ve been joining me here on the podcast. We’ve talked about the food scene here in Savannah, we’ve talked about… I’d have to go back and look at the list. I don’t know, I’m not keeping score, but we’ve talked about a bunch of things, and this is a topic that you have been wanting to talk about for probably a month, six weeks now, maybe two months, and we’re finally gonna get in under the fingernails into this topic. And it’s the subject of mental health in the food and beverage industry. I did some research coming into this and found a lot of interesting things, a lot of which very honestly that I already knew. I know the pressure cooker that is F&B, you know the pressure cooker that is F&B, but I’m going to start with– I have a lot of questions to ask you, the first one I’m going to ask you is, is it as bad now as it was five years ago? 

RR: I would say it’s definitely compounded, especially after 2020 and what we all experienced, and the stressors of 2020 trying to keep the restaurant and, you know, a business afloat, that it’s definitely compounded. I would say that it’s maybe not in dire straits like it was before, but it’s still a topic that deserves to be dove into. 

JB: Sure. And, by way of history—and we’re not going to spend 20 minutes going into the history of the pressure cooker that is working in a restaurant, but even before 2020, working in a restaurant, for a lot of people who have never done it, it seems like it’s fun until you get into it, and it’s a grind, isn’t it? 

RR: Yes, 100%. 100%. 

JB: Were you enthusiastically eager to jump in, and then when you got in, you went, “this is very different”? Did that happen to you? 

RR: Oh yeah. I think you have this notion of what [being] a chef and being in the F&B industry is like, and then once you actually jump in, with both feet, you realize, uh-oh, this definitely wasn’t what I was sold on 100%. 

JB: Was there a moment early on that you thought this isn’t for me? 

RR: I think when I started as a Sous, I was very wide-eyed, and was so eager to absorb everything, that the more I started to be in it for longer, I realized that there’s so much toxicity that comes with it as well. There’s a lot of joys, but there’s a lot of stressors as well. 

JB: Toxicity. I’m going to pull on that string. And every workplace in the world, not just restaurants, has, or [has] the potential to have toxic environments. How long did it take you to realize, man, this place is just, I don’t know that I can do this, once you got into the business? 

RR: Probably about a year in. A year in is when I started to realize, okay, I understand why so many chefs struggle with mental health issues and struggle with addictions and struggle with simply not sleeping, or whatever it may be. It was probably about a year in.

JB: Take us into a kitchen. It’s Saturday night, Friday night at busy restaurant A. A tiny example of the types of things that might happen in a kitchen that might rattle your cage for the rest of the night and/or weekend/week/month. 

RR: So I guess one of the deepest things, it’s always people, you know? People… people, like that’s just, they have lives going on and sometimes the stressors of working next to somebody when you are in the height of service is very stressful. You got people pulling you in six different directions. You’re working on your special, making sure you have what you need, making sure you’re communicating with front of house staff about exactly what those specials are, how many you have of whatever you may be selling so your counts are accurate. Sometimes you feel like you’re being pulled in so many different directions, you don’t know which way’s up. 

JB: But sometimes people can make it better too. 

RR: Yes, 100%. There are people who just simply love cooking, and love what they do, and those people make it enjoyable, and make it easier to deal with those stressors, 100%.

JB: And ultimately, you know, we could just use the word stressors to kind of whitewash the whole thing, but ultimately those stressors exist because of the pressure that you guys in the kitchen feel to make every meal perfect. 

RR: Yes. I mean, we carry the weight, a lot of people don’t think about it, but as a chef, I carry the weight of the whole of everybody. If something’s struggling in the back of house, it impacts everyone in the restaurant, whether it be from the server, to the manager having to deal with the guest at the table, the server having to communicate with the guest at the table, you know, it’s full circle. It impacts everyone. 

JB: Yeah, and I’m smiling because I’ve seen it. I will get into my experience in the restaurant industry in a minute, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it so often where a guest asks the server for this,

and that sets off a chain reaction where a server takes it to the chef, or a sous, or somebody in the kitchen, and chef says, “get the F out of here with that nonsense. I am not serving that dish without blah, blah, blah, that’s a key component.” And it kind of creates–it puts pressure on the server to go back and tell the guest we can’t accommodate you, which is gonna have them take on water from the guest–

RR: Yeah, it’s a ripple effect. 

JB: It is. All the way around. I’ve seen that happen so many times. I’m sure you have. What percentage of the time would you say those kinds of head butts, if you will, during service, kind of die off, and how many blow over into after hours, does it become a personal beef with between the chef and the server and everybody in the building?

RR: I would say for me, no, personally it doesn’t, because I realized, you know, they’re working for their money just like anybody else is in the restaurant industry. But for some, you take it personally sometimes, and you take it home. And trying not to take it home is one of the biggest struggles, like I said, because we do carry so much weight in the back of house for everyone, so it does get to where you’re constantly worried about how maybe one decision is gonna impact seven to eight people underneath you or in the restaurant, just because you made that one choice.

JB: I’ve seen chefs, when I worked in a restaurant, just be a complete jackass to a server who had an innocent question, undress them in front of everybody, because the bullets are flying, it’s live. It was a big old popular beard-esque restaurant where I worked, and it was just nasty. And I remember witnessing that going, man, that guy’s a jerk, putting it, you know, PG-13 for families. And I wondered how often people take that personally. It builds up when you’re dealing with people who–I don’t want to say thrive on friction, but that’s all they know is to berate and yell. The Gordon Ramseys of the world are the prime example, he’s like the poster boy for being a jerk in the restaurant industry. But it does build up. It builds up resentment, it builds up beef in your workplace. Is that a good way to put it? 

RR: Yes, it does. Like I was saying, it creates that toxic kitchen environment, which literally irritates me so much. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation, is because all chefs don’t have to be, like you said, the Gordon Ramseys. It doesn’t create a safe space. It doesn’t create a space where somebody wants to come to work if they’re always so worried about approaching the chef with the tiniest question, like, you know, does this dish have gluten in it? And you turn around and you are snarky, like, it could impact everyone on the floor because the communication is broken. That line of communication is broken. And they’re scared to come to you to ask the simple questions when you’re supposed to be the buffer, you know, you’re supposed to be the buffer between your line and the front of house, you’re supposed to help them each be successful. And when you’re snarky and nasty, it’s not conducive to anything. 

JB: So all of that said, we’ve just spent a few minutes talking about, you know, the… for lack of a better word, I hate to use this word, but I’m going to, at times it can be a cesspool of just, like your word, toxicity and friction and just all of it, kind of a sausage factory to make a great restaurant. And that takes a toll on some people. 

RR: It does. Yeah. I mean, when I was doing research about this topic, over 80% of chefs claim that they have mental health issues. And, you know, rightfully so, because it is such a boiling pot of so much and, you know, how it impacts not only them, but their staff around them and whether they want to show up to work, or whether, like I said, we’re making the right choices, because one little wrong step can send dominoes through the whole business. 

JB: Right. And there are some people, I’m sure listening, who have heard about these issues in the food and beverage industry who might roll their eyes and say, “hey man, try being an air traffic controller because if you make one mistake, you’ve got a plane going down or crashing into another one. That’s life and death.” This isn’t life and death, but at the end of the day, it is your livelihood. And so the pressure to produce is that high. 

RR: Yeah, and to be– to quote one of my favorite movies, Men In Black, “to be the best of the best of the best, sir.” You know, like, we always feel that pressure to create the most beautiful dish, make it amazing in taste, and not just the way it looks when it hits the table, and then how does that impact the server trying to sell the dish, and worrying about my labor costs, worrying about how much I’m spending on product, all of it compounds and it’s hard not to take that home with you. 

JB: Yeah. It’s kind of like a house of cards built on two cards. You are trying to delicately put this together all the way to your guest’s plate, from the five o’clock guest to the 9:45 guest, make it as perfect as possible every single time. The room for error practically doesn’t exist depending on the mood of the person who’s sitting at the table, with Yelp and all the other crap online now, that’s an incredible amount of pressure.

RR: It is, and especially now more so than ever. When I started, we had Yelp reviews, and now there’s Google, there’s all these platforms where anybody can go, and either hype you up, or completely destroy you.

JB: And it’s all subjective.

RR: It is, and whether it’s down to like, “that was too salty for me”, or sometimes it is a matter of preference, but that one review can destroy so much. And the availability of people to have their opinion is amazing. But at the same time, me personally, I will go through and read just to see and evaluate what the guest perspective is. But at the same time, I stop reading. Like, I don’t scroll through to see exactly what’s being said in terms, because that’s personal. It will impact me personally, and hinder the decisions I make moving forward, based off what one person said. 

JB: Right. Yeah, that’s a whole other conversation that we could have here, of how reviews… people will eviscerate you because they didn’t get the second basket of bread. Yeah. Yeah, that’s… anyway.

RR: That’s a whole ‘nother rabbit hole. 

JB: So yes, so back to this topic, you have these daily, nightly, weekly, monthly pressures. And not to say, well, that makes people drink, but no, in an environment where there’s a bar there, and you know the bartender and you know the servers, it is easy to–and I’m not even gonna be so silly as to use the term self-medicate, no, you wanna drink, I wanna drink after work sometimes or whatever the case may be, and sometimes people go a little bit too far with that nightly indulgence. Is that kind of where you think it potentially starts for some people? 

RR: I do, not just with the drinking, but there’s some days you’re working five days of 12 to 14 hour shifts, and I’ve talked to a lot of chefs that seek other “medications”, so to speak, to either help them stay awake and feel fueled, or to help them deal with the stressors. And it becomes a vice. It becomes a vice because you feel like that’s the only thing that you can cling to that makes it manageable. I personally love my shifty after work, but creating that habit is very dangerous, because that shouldn’t be your fallback. Having somebody to talk to, having somebody that you can decompress with and just get it off your chest and then move forward. I have another chef that likes to work out–

JB: After work? 

RR: Yeah, he works out. He’ll go run like 12 miles, and it’s ridiculous. It makes me sick. But that’s one of the ways he deals with the stressors. And, you know, I feel like we don’t talk about enough having those healthy stressors and decompressors, so to speak, to help you manage everything that you’re dealing with. Because it takes an emotional toll, it’s not just a physical toll, it’s an emotional toll.

JB: Sure. The corporate world has its happy hours. Five to seven, two for one, free munchies if you buy a drink, and everybody decompresses from their grinding work day that they started at eight o’clock in the morning. For you guys, you’re lucky if you can crack a beer at 11 o’clock at night and come down from your day, which may have started about noon. 

RR: Yep. 

JB: And next thing you know, one leads to two leads to three, and it’s 1:45 in the morning, “I need to go home, guys. I’m beaten, blah, blah…” Up all night, sleep all day, wash, rinse, repeat is a pattern that exists–I can’t say far too often, because it’s not my place to judge what people want to do with their time, but it’s not conducive to good mental health.

RR: Correct. It’s not. And like you said, where it takes–especially for me when I’m working night shift, I don’t–regardless of whether I go get my shifty or I go straight home, I still have trouble turning my brain off. Like I have to try to read, I have to do something else, I’ll put on a trash TV show to try to decompress and wind down, but still by the time I’m actually able to fall asleep sometimes, it’s like 2:30 in the morning. And it doesn’t actually help your mental health even more, because you’re not getting sleep. And sleep is the number one thing, to combat mental health and those emotional stressors is getting a good amount of sleep. 

JB: Yeah, yeah. And you’re not going to go home–let’s say you get to walk out at 10:30 one night on a Wednesday, the likelihood of you getting home at 11:00/10:45/10:50/11 o’clock and being asleep by 11:30 doesn’t exist. 

RR: No. Absolutely not.

JB: The same way somebody who works nine to five isn’t gonna go to sleep at 5:45. 

RR: Yep.

JB: You still have to do a couple of loads of laundry when I get home from work, and be ready for tomorrow, and do I need to iron a uniform or whatever the case may be… that’s when it happens for you, at midnight when half the world is sleeping.

RR: Yeah, and I will say too that eating, as ironic as this topic is, but eating– I mean a lot of the times by the time I get to work, I don’t eat until it’s like 11:30-12 at night. I haven’t eaten for 12 hours, because I’m so caught up in the hustle and bustle at work, that taking time to stop and eat for myself just isn’t as much of a priority as I should be putting it. And I’m not the only one, I talk to chefs all the time that, they’ve been tasting the food all day and they’re not hungry, and then they get off and they’re starving. So the constant joke is that chefs cook all this nice food all day and then they eat trash. And that’s because by the time we get home, we don’t want to cook, you know, spaghetti and meatballs, or whatever it may be. We just want something quick, fast, and in a hurry, so we can actually eat and wind down and then try to go to sleep. 

JB: Eat something decent too, not Hot Pockets. 

RR: Yes. Yeah. It’s a struggle. It really is. It’s a struggle. And it’s like, goes hand in hand with, like we were just saying, sleep. But eating is just as much a struggle for a lot of chefs, and prioritizing getting… 

JB: Being healthy. 

RR: Yeah, and eating good food.

JB: Bottom line, capital B, capital H, being healthy. It’s just not easy. 

RR: It’s not. 

JB: And that leads to all the problems we’ve been talking about. You said post-COVID, it has gotten a little more intense. Obviously, you know, the food and beverage industry took a beating during COVID, for a thousand reasons. How long have you been chefing now? 

RR: God, almost a decade. 

JB: Okay. So we’re talking half of your career has been post COVID, half of it-ish is pre COVID. Pre COVID, I believe it was, we had the whole Mario Batali thing up in New York, which led to the Me Too era/movement that had a big spotlight on F&B. Has that–and I’m bringing it up for a reason, I’ll tell you in a second why–has that changed at all for the better since all of that? 

RR: I would say yes and no. I think it’s put more of a spotlight on those issues, but at the same time, it’s also made some people more nervous to speak out about those issues, because of cancel culture, because of those reviews, because of all the backlash you can see on so many social media platforms now, it makes people nervous to even speak up at all. 

JB: Right, right. But then you get the cute server who is rejecting the advances of someone who’s her boss, who’s afraid to say something because she’s making good money and doesn’t want to say anything because, because, because, because, because. 

RR: It becomes a laundry list of reasons why they don’t want to talk about it. And that’s one of the, you know, being a female in the kitchen, especially in the back of house where there aren’t many females, standing your ground has become an easier thing to do now, but it’s also, like I said, like you just said, there’s so many laundry lists of reasons why I don’t want to, or I don’t want to approach my leadership with it, because I’m making good money. You know, maybe it was just a one-time thing, you come up with all these reasons, and not acknowledging the truth that it shouldn’t be something that’s happening at all. 

JB: And I brought that up for the simple reason that, you know, it’s not all confined to the kitchen. Sometimes you have front of the house who’s dealing with stuff, “yeah, I’ll go out for drinks with my coworkers this one night or two nights or three nights, but I don’t want to go anymore.” And sometimes there’s peer pressure and all of that stuff, and it compounds and it makes for uncomfortable work environments that it would be easy for us to say, “then just quit and go work somewhere else.” But it isn’t always that easy, right? 

RR: No, it’s not that easy. I mean, even if you go work somewhere else, the problem is still gonna follow you. At just about every kitchen or every F&B place, there are those issues. So running to another job isn’t the answer either. You’re gonna have a new boiling pot of problems that could lead to the same issue. You know, people people. So learning how to deal with that, dealing with those sensitive issues is very, very important. 

JB: I did not realize when I was doing a little bit of research for this conversation, the one stat that jumped out at me was that 60% of servers reported some type of anxiety, depression, some type of mental health issues directly related to their jobs. That’s a lot. 

RR: That’s a lot. 

JB: That is a lot. 

RR: And a lot of those numbers are like super high for the F&B industry, and it’s a lot for a server. I mean you got to think, like, sometimes the guests can be harassing, if you have an attractive server, male or female, come up to your table, they can be harassed by the guests just as much as they could be by a line cook, the dishwasher, it doesn’t matter. 

JB: Sometimes everyone. 

RR: Everyone, yeah. And it’s a topic that’s not touched on enough, about how much the server and the F&B industry deals with that type of stuff. 

JB: It’s a cauldron that leads to, we could start with a couple of beers after work, and like I said a few minutes ago, it turns into up all night, sleep all day, wash, rinse, repeat. The only time I’ve ever worked in a restaurant in my life was three months of my entire… whatever I am this year, I always forget my age, I think I’m 57, I always forget, I sit there and I do the math. But I worked in a restaurant for three months down in Orlando. It was an Emeril’s restaurant, Emeril Lagasse when they first opened at Universal Studios. 

RR: Oh, wow. 

JB: And I witnessed all of this stuff. And I was a little bit older than the average front of the house person, but I witnessed all this stuff, but because I was a little bit older, I was a little more mature. I went out for beers after work, in the three months I worked there, maybe twice with the quote unquote “guys”, but I would see them come in the next day hungover and all that stuff. And I largely avoided all that because I was older, and I had my guys, if you will, my quote unquote “guys” that I grew up with all worked in food and beverage. So I got my fill of that lifestyle hanging out with them on the periphery, if that makes sense. So by the time it was later, I was like, yeah, no, I know where that leads to. And next thing you know, you’re getting home at four in the morning after a trip to Waffle House. I’m not going down that path. We’ve all been there, regardless of where we work. But all that to say, I see where it could lead to real trouble for some people. I witnessed it. In three months, I witnessed it with some of my coworkers back then, this is 20 plus years ago. It’s not–even now, with social media as prominent as it is, it’s not something people talk about every day. The only thing you’ll hear is “I’m hungover from last night, we stayed out too late.”

JB: Yep, and I mean, one of the TV popular chefs, Anne Burrell. I mean, talking about how she took her own life, regardless of the circumstances, that topic of the surrounding toxicity of F&B wasn’t discussed. Everybody was like, “oh this is very sad, oh she was a great lady, I can’t believe that, you know, she fell victim to this.” But it’s so much more, if you deep dive into it, than just one action. It’s built up over time, and it’s not just like one day she woke up and decided that this was happening. This was a compounding issue for her. And it happens to the best chefs, I mean, I’ve seen it happen to servers, because there’s no resources, or the conversation isn’t being had about mental health. 

JB: Why do you think that is? 

RR: The conversations aren’t being had? Well, because first of all, it’s uncomfortable for people. Nobody wants to talk about mental health, nobody wants to talk about suicide, nobody wants to talk about alcoholism, nobody wants to talk about drug problems, nobody wants to have those uncomfortable conversations. And I understand. I get it, but at the same time, if we’re not talking about it, the issue is just gonna rinse, wash, repeat. The more we talk about these issues, the more we bring it to light, the more likely it is that people are going to find somebody to talk to, find those healthy outlets versus just internalizing it. And that’s where you get those angry chefs, that’s where you get those people. I’ve had plates thrown at my head before. It compounds so much, they don’t know how to deal with those stressors, and so it ends up being things like alcoholism and suicide, versus having resources where they can find the help that they need. 

JB: How many times in your career as a chef have you—and obviously we’re not naming names, we’re not naming restaurants, we don’t even need to name cities because I know you worked here and there, but how many times have you worked with someone and gotten to know someone, whether on the line or front of the house or whatever, and you’ve gone home and said, man, you know, so-and-so’s got serious issues. They need to either quit, or find some help, whether it be substance abuse or mental health or anxiety or anything. How often does that cross your path? 

RR: Very often. 

JB: Really? 

RR: Very often. 

JB: I wish I could say, I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be. 

RR: Yeah. 

JB: How often does someone you know–not someone you know personally, how often do you hear of someone that legit sought help?

RR: Very few and far between. 

JB: Given that you just said all the time, and now you say few and far between, why do you think there is that gap? 

RR: First of all, it’s the stigma. It’s the stigma of, if I do ask, or I do admit this, am I going to have a job when I come back? And how is this long term going to impact me? Because if you go, let’s just say, you go to rehab. And when you come out, everybody now knows in the F&B industry that you went to rehab. So that can sometimes ruin the picture for you trying to get a job moving forward, because they don’t want to be another stressor that led you back to why you went to rehab in the first place. 

JB: “If I go to rehab, I’m gonna have to move to Charleston.”

RR: Correct, or I’m have to change cities. 

JB: “And I don’t wanna move to Charleston, I’ve got kids, I wanna keep them here.”

RR: Yeah, you’re gonna have to uproot your whole life to find somebody that doesn’t know your past history, versus employers and management being like, “awesome, heck yeah, that’s freaking amazing that you chose to put yourself first.” Because especially in the F&B industry, I know for me personally as well, I put myself on the back burner. Everybody else’s problems come first. Everybody else’s issues, whether in-house or out-of-house, is more important to me sometimes than my own wellbeing. So as a manager, or anybody in the F&B industry, choosing to put yourself first when you’re so used to serving everybody else is very, very difficult. 

JB: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I’ve had friends who are lifers in the business who have gotten out, they’re happier, they’re Monday through Friday, I’d see them on the weekend and everything was wonderful. And then an offer they can’t refuse comes up to get back into the restaurant business, they go back, and within three months they’re losing hair and they’re miserable again. 

RR: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been trying to open a restaurant now for a while that’s finally opened, and I will say that like, I’ve lost weight just from the stressors, like I said, I don’t personally put myself first in prioritizing eating and things like that. I’ve lost weight. I’ve also known another local chef that opened a restaurant here in Savannah recently and he said the same thing. He lost 30 plus pounds trying to get the restaurant open. So, yeah. 

JB: I need to open a restaurant. And then when I lose the 30 pounds, close it. 

RR: Close it? Yeah. That’ll take like the first three months and then you’ll be good. 

JB: I hate to make light of that, but no, I get it. I get it. It’s like something as silly as me cooking for a dinner party at my house. I’m cooking for 50 people, I’m tasting all day, I don’t eat. And then everybody’s gone and it’s 11 o’clock at night and I’m like, oh, I’m starving here. 

RR: Yeah, you’re starving. 

JB: And I don’t want to eat all that. I’ve been eating it all day, kind of thing. 

RR: And also, I make the same… you make food every day, and when you see it every day, it’s not necessarily something you want to eat. Not saying that it’s bad, but you stare at it. You’ve been tasting the same thing all day. So you don’t necessarily want to order food from your restaurant to go, because you’ve been staring at it all day. 

JB: Does your restaurant have any kind of procedures where if somebody came to you, one of your line cooks came to you and said, “hey, you know I need somebody to talk to, I’m struggling with A, B, or C, I don’t know what to do.” Do you guys have…?

RR: So, it is something that I personally am campaigning for. My slogan, I guess, so to speak, is “relationships through food”. Because that’s ultimately what makes food thrive, is the relationships, whether it’s around the table with the guests or it’s in the back. One of the things I try to do every day is family meal, because there’s nothing worse than not being able to sit down for a few minutes and laugh and joke and have those moments where you can kind of, even if it’s for 30 minutes before service, decompress and get to know the person next to you that you’re working with. It can change the whole dynamic. And I will say for me personally, my phone’s always on, whether it’s Facebook Messenger, Instagram, text message, phone calls, I tell everybody, locally, I’m like, “if you need somebody to talk to, please call me, if you need anything at all, if you’re struggling, please reach out, because there’s somebody that will listen.”

JB: Do you think there are enough places out there where people can find help easily?

RR: I don’t. I don’t think, like I said, it’s a topic that’s talked about enough to rally those organizations. Me working with mental health and several other nonprofits has only fueled my flame for the F&B industry. I know that the Burnt Chef project is a really good resource for that, they talk about it all the time, they highlight those issues, but absolutely not, there are not enough resources. 

JB: Sure. Are you familiar with Ben’s Place? 

RR: I’m not.

JB: Ben’s Place is one of these, like the Burnt Chef, it’s a nationwide group that helps people, kind of like AA, they have regular meetings, and there are chapters all over the country. They had one here where they would meet in person, and a bunch of years ago I wanted to do a story about them, and I wanted to do it video-wise, just to bring it to life, rather than write about all these anonymous people. I wanted to try to interview anybody who would talk to me, and it was too touchy-feely to do that, for the reasons you have been saying here, “I don’t wanna go on TV and tell people I’m an alcoholic, I’m gonna be applying for a job here”, or whatever. So I understood that, but I knew that Ben’s Place existed here in Savannah, and I’m told now, made a couple of calls before us having this conversation, that in 2020, they had to go to Zoom meetings, but they were still happening weekly, and then that burned off. Come to find out, Ben’s Place is nationwide. There is a very active chapter in Charleston, and it is as aggressive as anybody may need. You just have to make that phone call to them. 

RR: That’s amazing. 

JB: Yeah. And I didn’t realize that Ben’s–not Ben’s Place, Ben’s Friends, I apologize, I put my glasses on. It’s Ben’s Friends. They do similar stuff, you know, like AA, they have structured meetings, which, I’m guessing they meet in person in Charleston, but there would probably be others now with Zoom and virtual chats becoming as ubiquitous as they are, you lose the excuse now that there are no meetings in my town. 

RR: Yep. Which is amazing. 

JB: Yes. You lose–it checks another box to use it as an excuse. 

JB: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I will go so far as to say that, are you familiar with Rocky’s New York Deli down in Sandfly? 

RR: No.

JB: Rocky’s is owned by Bill Visicchio, who is a–I don’t know that I could call him a member or an alum of Ben’s Friends, but he has attended meetings. He was the one that I was talking to back before 2020 about attending the meetings, and you know, not my place to go down the row of the details of Bill’s journey, but he told me himself before I had this conversation with you, if there’s anybody out there that needs someone to talk to in person here, send them my way and I’ll get them pointed to whoever they want to reach out to. So if anybody’s listening to this and this is connecting with them and they want to talk to somebody in person, you know, don’t show up on a Friday afternoon during the lunch rush and say, “hey, Bill, can I have a word with you?” But reach out to Bill down at Rocky’s, he is a great, great guy, New York guy, and he can point you in the right direction. And ultimately beyond that, if we send people to Bill, your staff, they know they can come to you, what advice would you have to someone who may not wanna do either of those things but wants to find help in whatever shape or form that may look like? 

RR: I would definitely say, you at least need to, if you don’t want to say or disclose yourself personally, email is one of the ways that I’ve found for a lot of people it’s easier, because they can say–they can type it out, they can say what they’re struggling with, and then I’m able to connect without necessarily connecting with them personally. Anybody can reach out, like I said, I’m a part of several other nonprofits that deal with mental health. So I have several resources and you know if they don’t want to talk to me personally, there are other people locally that are on board and finding them the direct help that they need.

JB: What is your email address, if you don’t mind me asking? 

RR: chefraesav@gmail.com  

JB: chefraesav@gmail.com, very good. Well, there are options for people who want to find help. 

RR: And you’re not alone.

JB: No, of course not. 

RR: I think that’s the common thing that we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves is that we’re the only ones struggling with these issues, we’re the only one, you know, I don’t want anybody to know, we’re scared to open up and reach out. But you’re not alone. You’re not by yourself in any of these issues, mental health, physical health, you know, regardless of what it might look like for that person individually, you’re not alone. You matter. 

JB: You’re not alone and it’s not a dead end. 

RR: Yeah.

JB: You don’t need to do this for the rest of your life, if you have someone to help you find alternatives. 

RR: Yeah. There’s always an answer. 

JB: Ben’s Friends, the Burnt Chef Project, you can email Rae, you can go see Bill. And last one I’m going to mention, and it may sound silly, but I find sometimes in my business world and different things that I want to wrap my head around, I don’t have coworkers per se, I have part timers that that work with me with what I do with Eat It and Like It, but sometimes I need to listen to like-minded people, and I find them on YouTube. You go on YouTube and I bet you anything, one YouTube search of this topic and you’ll find people in your same boat. 

RR: 100%. 

JB: And just listen to them for 10-12 minutes and it might nudge you to go find some real help. 

RR: Yeah, and it can also shift your perspective, because sometimes in our head we’re like, “this is world ending! I feel the weight of the world!” And then you listen to somebody else’s story, and you realize, okay, I do have struggles that I’m struggling with, but it’s not as bad as some of the other stories that I’ve heard. 

JB: Very good. 

RR: Thank you so much for letting me come and talk about this. 

JB: Thank you, thank you. We will talk about it again, I’m sure, in different forms. We could talk about how we’d like to punch Yelp reviewers in the face. 

RR: (laughing) Okay, next topic. 

JB: Rae, thank you, enjoy your day, and we will see you next time right back here on the Eat It and Like It podcast.

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