Virtue
Virtue
A company’s product or service does not exist in the abstract; it is instead always one part of a larger design process, the end product of an innumerable series of decisions. A hardware store’s stocking of pliers encased in indestructible plastic packaging destined to populate a landfill or a garbage scow sent out to sea is a voluntary choice of the store: companies have the power to demand design changes from their suppliers including product packaging design changes. The selling of a product that is destined to or that has already caused environmental damage is not excusable, even if it might be justifiable on purely an economic basis. Products and services, and the companies that provide them, need to be seen in the decisions they make and in the foundational belief systems that underly those decisions.
For some companies, the bottom line is the only line.
For many companies’ decision-making is solely economic based - to generate as great a profit from the product or service as possible - for others, other factors are considered, factors that may take into account the cost of human capital, environmental effects or on the very rare occasions simple humanity. One such company that looks at things on a broader basis is Virtue, owner and chef Erick Williams’ acclaimed restaurant in Hyde Park, Chicago.
Erick and Virtue do things differently, and their approach can be understood from what Erick’s father once said: The search for equality is found through common ground, and sharing a meal is a universal expression of respect and dignity. We live in a world that idealizes exclusivity, be it wrist watches that only the super-rich can afford or clubs or education institutions that flaunt as a badge of merit that they exist only for a select few.
It’s About Inclusivity
Erick and Virtue are about inclusiveness, the sharing and breaking of bread with a broad diverse group of people. Virtue explores all of the rich flavors and nuances of southern heritage and its mission is to share the beauty of this exploration with everyone, of every color, every background, every nationality. It is through this process that a deeper appreciation for each other, members of a rich, broad community, can be achieved.
Honesty and Candor
A key component of inclusiveness is honesty and candor: the willingness to share openly without apology all of the elements upon which one exists. The taking of food from another is in many ways a very intimate exchange, and that intimacy, to be fully realized, requires candor. And so Erick and his team have populated the windows of Virtue with his and many of his teams’ and his patrons’ personal experiences as people of color in America: I Can’t Kneel; I Can’t Go To Church; I Can’t Have A Routine Traffic Stop; I Can’t Watch Birds; I Can’t Breathe – the list is long, longer than what is written here, and it is a list of more than just obstacles. The windows of Virtue are a litany recounting the denial of the benefits of liberty in a land that true or not flaunts its adherence to the ideas of freedom and liberty.
A Real Belief System
In this way the name Virtue is audacious, a demand that what goes into the restaurant and what comes out must align with a real belief system, a set of values that permeates every aspect of the enterprise. That belief system sits in contrast to the rooted experience of deprivation that is the foundation of the Black experience in America, and is instead one rooted in the spirit of grace and charity and hospitality: a defiant rejection of bitterness that should be a natural response to the century long continuing experience of denial for the Black community.
And so it starts with the food, generated through sustainable farming respectful of the environment and the limited resources of our planet, from local purveyors – the restaurant itself contributing to the livelihood of our surrounding agricultural communities.
Training the Next Generation of Chefs
It extends next to the team. Seven out of ten restaurants fail – there is often little room to think beyond the bottom line. Virtue is different. Erick is a mentor committed to training the next generation of chefs providing opportunity to Black chefs, a group traditionally disassociated from ownership and executive opportunities in the industry.
Stepping Up During the Pandemic
During the pandemic, Virtue’s commitment to team came in sharp focus when it began providing free groceries to his staff while generating revenue and continued cash flow for his employees by offering to-go family meals to the public. This model was expanded next to the first responders providing thousands of meals to those on the front-line in the battle against the effects of the deadly coronavirus. At the height of the pandemic, Virtue closed its door to the public devoting its operations solely to serving meals financed by a GoFundMe account and began serving first responders and front-line workers only until the crisis solely began to recede.
The value-based superstructure of the enterprise allows Erick and his team to then do what restaurants do best, provide delicious, well-crafted food and hospitality to its guests. As Erick’s father once said:
The search for equality is found through common ground, and sharing a meal is a universal expression of respect and dignity.
More about Erick: Erick Williams is the founder and Executive chef of Virtue, a Hyde Park restaurant currently a finalist for the James Beard Award. This April Erick was awarded the City of Chicago Medal of Honor for his efforts during the Pandemic, In 2019, Erick was voted the top chef in Chicago by the Chicago Tribune, and was recently identified by the New York Times as one of 16 Black Chefs changing food in America. Erick has worked with renowned artist Theaster Gates on Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art, organized through the Smart Museum, Chicago, cooked at the James Beard House in 2014, and was a co-host of the James Beard Dinner at the Chicago restaurant institution, mk, of which prior to opening Virtue he was the Executive Chef. Erick spends his spare time teaching and training at-risk youth and is a mentor to many; he believes in the value of education through cooking and strives to be an example for those in his community.