Although he is only 31 years old, the restaurateur and chef Eric Ernest has been sober and working a program for over a decade as an entrepreneur in recovery. At 17, he was an alcoholic “garbage can” who would do any drug he could get his hands on. Still a minor, he had an extensive criminal history that included drug dealings, guns and assault & battery. Once he got sober, his shattered past and tainted record led nowhere. He could not get accepted to college and was turned down by the military. Eric reflects, “I basically had no options, and I thought about being a sober criminal.”
In his rehab, Eric started working in the kitchen and moved right into cooking. Using this experience on a resume, he obtained a dishwashing job at a restaurant. From the lowliest point in the hierarchy, he built himself up and several years later was opening up his first establishment. Eric loved working in a restaurant in early sobriety because it got him out of his head. The long, action-oriented hours, the multi-tasking atmosphere, and the constant demand for focus were beneficial to his early sobriety. As he said, “I was forced to put the principles into practice in order to succeed.” When he became a cook, the meditative part of cooking enhanced his spiritual serenity.
Since opening his first place at 24, Eric has started six restaurants as either an owner or a profit sharing partner with multi-unit, multi-concept restaurant groups. Since the industry is network-based and tightly woven, Eric estimates he has gotten jobs for 400 alcoholics and addicts in recovery, and a vast majority of those in early sobriety. Although the number stunned this blogger, I was convinced when Eric received two phone calls while I interviewed him at Starbucks. The first was from a sponsor looking for a job for his sponsee, and the second was from a friend who was opening a new restaurant and looking for workers. Laughing, Eric mentioned that he receives such calls virtually every day of the week.
I asked him why he would put his reputation on the line by recommending those in early sobriety for jobs to his business associates. He related two key points to me: 1) The restaurant business is based on word-of-mouth, and you tend to go with what you know. When people he respects in the program recommend a person in early sobriety, he sides with his faith in them. 2) A direct attempt at making an impact by offering to others in the program what was freely given to him. The restaurant business provides a fast track to life because a worker must multi-task, be willing and have people skills. The only challenge with workers in early sobriety has been the mental aspect. When they cannot shut their heads off, the alcoholic conditions makes it much harder to be a worker among workers and keep focused for long periods of time. Nevertheless, Eric estimates that 90% of the people he recommended in early sobriety have kept their jobs for at least a year. Overall, the track record created by workers in early sobriety is so impressive, it has allowed Eric to return to the productive well over and over again.
Eric Ernest will be speaking at a future Entrepreneurs In Recovery meeting. He currently has several restaurant projects in the works, and he is seeking funding. He notes that in a difficult economy, mid-level restaurants tend to thrive. Why? Because the clientele of the high-level restaurants trickle down and spend more money at the mid-levels than their typical customers. Since they no longer go to Spago, they now show up at the Cheesecake Factory. If anyone is interested in learning about Eric’s projects, he can be contacted at foie_gras@hotmail.com.
