[24] Understory: Worker-led Restaurant

Cooperative Journal

Understory is a worker-led restaurant, bar, and incubation kitchen in Oakland, CA. In collaboration with Oakland Bloom, they center immigrant, working class, and people of color chefs through pathways to worker-leadership, project support and training, and economic opportunities. It is more than just a restaurant, they offer a platter of ways to physically and socially nourish the community in a co-creative way. You can experience the roots of the workers through their rotating menu of Filipino, Moroccan, and Mexican cuisine, check out local art, attend a dance party, or support an immigrant or refugee chef at their weekly pop-up.

In this episode I speak with one of the chefs Florencio Esquivel about how Understory is shifting the narrative of who receives support and amplification in the restaurant industry. They share how the pandemic influenced the restaurant’s formation, process of assuming responsibilities and navigating decision making, impact and intention of their worker emergency fund, importance of preserving indegenous recipes, and their vision for a changed restaurant world that is horizontally structured while honoring the diversity of workers and their lineage.

Resources

Understory’s Instagram

Understory’s Website

Wahpepah’s Kitchen (Kickapoo Tribe Restaurant in Oakland)