You Good?

Southern Smoke is rescuing F&B workers—and no, it's not a barbecue restaurant.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I owe my life to Southern Smoke, the nonprofit that “takes care of our own by putting dollars directly into the pockets of F&B workers when you need it most.”

It was mid-2020 when shit really started to hit the fan for me, personally and professionally. Looking back now, I realize I was already showing severe symptoms of burnout at the beginning of 2020 (physically and mentally tired all the time; irritable, frustrated, unmotivated, apathetic; insomnia; headaches; feeling inadequate and deeply worried about my ability to succeed). I’d been in the grind of running my first wine shop and bar for six years, the non-profit I cofounded for two years, and my first restaurant for eight months—while also juggling a birth trauma and the complete lack of childcare options on nights and weekends and major holidays. And then the pandemic cruised in. And then Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed. And my businesses in Oakland, CA, were shut down and boarded up and very nearly bombed out. I laid off 37 people, told my investors I’d likely lost all their money, and got screamed at violently for running along the shore one morning without a mask. I did not think it was a good idea for me to keep… going.

I did not have a therapist. I did not have the energy to ask for help. I did not have the money to pay for one, anyway. Luckily, a friend had recently tipped me off to an organization called Southern Smoke.

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On Wednesday of this past week, I attended a panel discussion organized by said Southern Smoke Foundation at Robert Mondavi’s Arch & Tower tasting room in downtown Napa. The roundtable was called “Vines & Vision: Tools for Success in the Evolving Food & Wine Industry.” The discussion began with a rundown of the gloomy (desperate? dire?!) state of the wine industry—you know, all the funsy bits about natural disasters, climate crisis, economic meltdown, urgent diversity issues and our industry’s glaring exclusivity problem, and more good stuff! There was a pause in the conversation while we collectively wiped our furrowed brows. And then Cat Bill, the foundation’s Chief Mission Officer, astutely asked the audience if any of us were, in that moment, feeling anxious or depressed.

It was a brilliant segue: Enter Southern Smoke’s “Behind You” program, which offers no-cost mental health counseling to Food & Beverage (F&B) workers. It doesn’t matter where in the food supply chain you work—whether you’re a farmer, a fry cook, a server, a sommelier or (like me) the owner of several hospitality establishments—you can apply for therapy that’s completely no-cost.

As Southern Smoke describes:

For many, fire and sharp objects aren’t just hazards; they’re tools of the trade. Loud, stressful situations are a given. Double-shifts are standard. By day’s end, it can feel exhausting to do one more thing, even if that one thing is asking for help. So instead, we’re offering.

In kitchens nationwide, workers know that when they hear “Behind you,” someone is close by. In an industry like ours—often characterized by long shifts, loud kitchens, sharp tools, and high stress—a strong support system changes everything. We all need someone behind us.

Through our mental health program, Behind You, Southern Smoke provides access to no-cost counseling for food and beverage workers in California, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and beginning Summer 2024, Maine, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Those who live outside of the service states can apply for financial assistance to cover mental health care needs through our Emergency Relief Fund.

[Thumb snaps! Claps! Feels like a YASSS QUEEN moment.]

We cannot have a conversation about resiliency—the ability to bounce back from setbacks, the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties, the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility—without addressing our society’s mounting mental health challenges. This goes for all industries, but wine in particular. And while it would be ignorantly easy to demand that employers provide insurance policies that include mental health care to their employees, I’ll speak up as an employer to say that the margins in wine are too thin; the money’s not there; our busted, for-profit health care system has made mental health care too expensive within the insurance framework. I deeply regret that I cannot afford this for my teams.

And this is why Southern Smoke is invaluable. The Foundation distributes grants to universities offering accredited graduate-level programs for psychology, social work, clinical mental health, or counseling. Dedicated student clinicians provide Southern Smoke’s Behind You clients with up to 20 no-cost supervised counseling sessions (or up to six months of counseling, whichever is reached first), guided by a licensed clinical supervisor and the university program director.

When I wasn’t sure it made sense for me to keep going, I was lucky to know about Southern Smoke, but I was skeptical about how long the application process would take. I was nervous my friends at the organization would know I was applying, and I deeply questioned my eligibility and need for care (surely I could just “pull it together” and surely I could just “scrape up” enough to cover my own costs, right?). I was intensely worried about confidentiality, safety, and sharing my darkest thoughts with a clinician, and I was incredibly doubtful that I’d be matched with someone I liked and felt I could open up to. I felt fear, guilt, and shame. But I also couldn’t get out of bed some days. So I pushed the “Apply Today” button. And I had my intake appointment followed by my first visit with my clinician within a week.

Today, I’m a proud “graduate” of the program, equipped with ongoing resources including future therapy sessions from Cal Lutheran University offered on a sliding scale, plus the “Personal Bill of Rights” and “Mental Health Maintenance Plan” PDFs I keep open on my desktop to check in with daily. One of my own biggest challenges was learning to set boundaries and not take personally (or personally take on) the issues of my team members and colleagues. I want everyone to be happy and thriving and in glorious community all the time, and I felt deeply personally responsible for every challenge any peer or employee made me aware of. Now, however, I know that my job as a boss (and a human) is only to ask my teams the question that SSF’s Founding Director Chris Shepherd routinely poses:

“You Good?”

When the answer is “No,” it’s not my job to fix it. I can take the pressure of figuring out what to do off my plate and instead pass them the resources—in this case, the link to Behind You.

We are in it as an industry right now, facing unparalleled uncertainty and dwindling time to figure it out. The discussion at Mondavi last week ended, however, with Chris prompting the panelists, “OK. There’s a lot to be anxious about here. But I want to know: What are you excited about right now?” Tegan Passalacqua, winemaker at Turley and proprietor of his own label, Sandlands, replied, “For me, the train wreck has to happen for people to come together in community. And I see this right now. People are finally starting to come together over viruses and wildfires and the urgent need for organic farming. A big part of sustainability is community—none of us can do this alone—and I’m excited about what we can become together.”