These women are making strides in CT's food and beverage industry

In December, Renee Touponce, the executive chef of Oyster Club and Port of Call in Mystic, was named Chef of the Year by the Connecticut Restaurant Association. Six weeks later, she picked up her first James Beard award nomination, as a semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast Region. She was quick to point out that she was the second consecutive woman to win the award, after Emily Mingrone, the chef-owner of New Haven's Tavern on State and Fair Haven Oyster Co. The two are friends and colleagues, and similar in age, both in their mid-30s. "We are crushing it," she said, extending the compliment to all of her female peers in the industry. Connecticut's food and beverage industry is home to both rising and established female stars, who are garnering national media attention for their talent and building creative new brands while promoting equitable and inclusive workplace cultures in what's traditionally been known as a "boys' club." Few Connecticut restaurateurs had a more eventful 2022 than Gina Luari, head of The Statement Group. Her millennial-centric all day brunch concept, The Place 2 Be, expanded out of Hartford County to New Haven and Springfield, Massachusetts. Her team also renovated its original location on Franklin Avenue in Hartford — and handled an unexpected five-month renovation period at its downtown Constitution Plaza outpost, when a March fire destroyed its patio and damaged its interior. Along the way, she also signed a lease for a new The Place 2 Be location in Dallas. She's also on the cusp of opening a brand-new concept, RAW, a raw bar and seafood spot on Hartford's Trumbull Street. Other Hartford concepts are in the works, including a Central and South American restaurant with a tequila bar and a brick-oven pizzeria with craft beer and cocktails. But she says she still feels like she needs to prove herself to skeptics. "In a year, we opened and recovered and reopened five in total," she said. "I thought I'd [proven] to everyone that we can do it, but it seems like more the more we expand, the more people are skeptical, which is frustrating to me." A young restaurant mogul at 31, Luari doesn't have many female peers in Connecticut's restaurant industry. Most of the state's restaurant groups equal or larger in size to Statement are run by men. She describes reluctance and skepticism from landlords and other officials in decision-making roles, who have asked her to provide additional documents and details that her male restaurateur friends haven't had to produce. She said she would feel more comfortable approaching female restaurateurs who've had similar experiences. "Sometimes I feel like I'm on my own island," she said. "Who do I call for everything that's happening, and who do I turn to?" Luari is now determined to be that resource and mentor, ready to share answers, information and contacts with others looking to make it in the industry. Within her own organization, women hold executive roles as director of experience, creative director and brand manager, and other women hold managerial positions at each restaurant, both in the front and back of the house. She describes the culture as "very collaborative and very respectful." Newcomers learn the culture quickly, she said. When a new cook repeatedly addressed a female manager as "sweetie," the manager immediately set the tone. "She said, 'I'm not your sweetie, I'm your boss. We don't do that here'," Luari said. Touponce's reaction to her first James Beard award nomination is reflective of how she runs her kitchen. The chef received the news by text while on vacation with her partner, Jade, in January. After the two shared an emotional moment, Touponce immediately called her sous chefs and cooks back home in Mystic. "I was so proud to share that moment with them and let them know we did it, we're here, we're in this together," she said. "They were the first people I wanted to let know because they are a huge part of it, and they're like family to me. We worked so hard to do this together." Touponce prides herself on creating an equitable, inclusive environment among her staff, emphasizing respect, collaboration and creative freedom. Traditions of "ego and machoism" are not her style, or part of her core values, she said. "Everybody runs their kitchens differently, and I've been in kitchens like that and remember how it felt," she said. She started her culinary career about 20 years ago, and recalls working in male-dominated kitchen cultures, navigating big egos, flirting attempts that became aggressive and other inappropriate behavior. Often outnumbered by men, she said it was difficult not to have other women around to talk to about her experiences. But now, as a leader of a kitchen, she gets to set her own standard. "There's none of that," she said. "We're here to have a good time and make delicious food." Though half of her staff is female, she said it doesn't even necessarily come down to gender — she just expects the best out of everyone. "It's just how you lead and how you teach your people and how you respect them," she said. "It doesn't have to come down to man or woman...it's who you are as a leader, as an individual, and that's kind of what I stand for." Touponce is also close friends with other top female chefs in the state, including Mingrone and Ashley Flagg, the executive chef at Millwright's in Simsbury. They support each others' work, dine at each others' restaurants and try to collaborate on special events, she said. "I'm just really fortunate that it so happens that we're all women, and have the same core values and philosophies, and it's working," she said. "On top of that, we all support each other." Driven by a shared desire to empower and uplift women in beer, three female brewery owners came together in 2022 to craft a collaboration beer, which they named "Bombshell." The fruited IPA brewed with pink guava, pineapple and peach purees is back for another year, with a longer-term philanthropic mission behind it. Joy Braddock of Hog River Brewing in Hartford, Heather Wilson of Hop Culture Farms & Brew Co. in Colchester and Alisa Bowens-Mercado of Rhythm Brewing Co. in New Haven joined forces again to launch the Bombshell Project, a nonprofit organization designed to help women gain the skills, resources, connections and confidence they need to become business leaders and owners. The organization will partner women with female industry leaders for mentorship opportunities. A portion of proceeds from the 2023 Bombshell IPA will now be donated to the Bombshell Project to get it off the ground, the brewery owners said. The beer will be released March 25 at an event at Hog River's taproom to celebrate the nonprofit's launch, featuring local women-owned vendors and businesses, live music, food trucks and live T-shirt printing. "We want to specifically raise up women into decision-making roles into leadership, and into ownership," Braddock said. "It's actual practical business experience that we can lend to women...what's the very first step? How do you get your funding? How do you find your location? How do you market your product?" As female brewery owners, Braddock, Wilson and Bowens-Mercado face the challenges of a male-dominated industry, and Bowens-Mercado is one of just a few Black female brewery owners in the United States. They were first inspired to create the collaboration beer a year after what Braddock called a "reckoning" in the industry, when a female production manager at a Massachusetts brewery asked other women in beer to share their experiences in the beer world. Thousands of women reached out to her on Instagram, describing sexism, harassment, racism and general misogynistic behavior: demeaning remarks about their knowledge levels or physical strength, assumptions about their roles in the industry, pervasive cultures of sexual harassment — and even sexual violence. "Was there really revolutionary change within in the industry [after that]? No, and of course that's going to take time," Braddock said. "That's why we said, 'Let's not let this die.' We need to continue this, we need to grow it and turn the tide one beer at a time." "The idea that we have is [that] the only way to make changes is to get women in these decision-making roles," she continued. "You can talk all day about diversity and inclusion and make the right sexual harassment policies. That's all critical. But the actual change comes when the HR department isn't run by the male owner of the brewery. That's what needs to change. Women need a network of support within the industry." Wilson is the head brewer at Hop Culture, and she's posted job openings for production roles, where the majority of the applicants are male, she said. Brewing is highly physical work, involving a lot of science, and she said that could be daunting for some people. But she also thinks it would be beneficial for female craft beer enthusiasts to get an up-close look at the process. "I think that if you would be able to get women in a room on the production side where they felt comfortable exploring that part of the business, I think that would do a lot for getting more females in production," Wilson said. "Being able to ask questions, and seeing somebody else that looks like them doing it." The owners said they plan for the beer to become a year-round release, with proceeds from its sales funding the Bombshell Project. Braddock said they're "thinking big" and would love for the beer to enter national distribution. "If we could walk away from this years in the future and just know that at the very least we helped a handful of women open their own business, we will feel like we contributed," Braddock said.

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