Bon Appétit Management Company

Old Skool Cafe is an unusual restaurant. Located in Bayview–Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, this youth-run jazz-themed supper club is operated through a faith-based violence prevention program that offers marketable employment skills in the restaurant industry to at-risk youth ages 16 to 22. They cook, wait tables, and provide the entertainment. The nonprofit program was started by a former corrections officer and unstoppable force named Teresa Goines, who ran the program out of her house for years. Ninety-two percent of the program’s attendees have earned high school diplomas, and 13 have started college since 2010. Bon Appétit CEO Fedele Bauccio met Teresa through Golden State Warriors President and COO Rick Welts, and instantly wanted to help. Old Skool Cafe was in the middle of a renovation to reconfigure its cramped space to allow it to serve more customers, and Fedele […]

Top Chef Junior finalist Rahanna Bisseret Martinez joined forces with our Healthy Kids team for a special class at the Garden at Oracle Park.

The past Bon Appétit Fellows share what they learned — and what advice they’d give current food-activist students.

“You’ll burn yourself out if you try to fix everything that’s wrong with our food system.”

“Spend at least a month (ideally a season!) working full time on a farm.”

“I became a confident speaker, panel facilitator, writer, and photographer. I’ve used these skills over the course of my career to investigate social and environmental problems.”

“Ask questions, lots of them. I think in our current information age, we’re often overwhelmed, oversaturated, and we are quick to place things into “good” or “evil.” But the truth is, the world is much more complicated than that.”

“Read the fine print of every policy/commitment/claim by an organization, because the meaning and integrity is always in the details. If something isn’t specific, it usually doesn’t have much meaning.”

“Always dig deeper. With so much of my work, I have been successful because I dug a little deeper, got a little more curious, and didn’t take things at face value.”

“As a Fellow, I learned a lot about the creation of our companywide purchasing policies — and it left me wanting to know more about how they are implemented and maintained. That’s exactly what I work on now.”