Cleveland’s own Brandon Chrostowski, founder of a network of food businesses under EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute umbrella, has been named as one of the five semi-finalists in the “Outstanding Restaurateur” category in the prestigious James Beard Awards. A list of 20 was narrowed down to the final five. The winner will be announced on June 5 at the awards ceremony at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Chrostowski’s story is well-known to Clevelanders since he founded the flagship EDWINS restaurant at Shaker Square in 2013. The French fine-dining establishment is in fact part of a nonprofit that trains formerly incarcerated people in culinary and hospitality arts, giving them in-demand skills for a sector less interested in people’s past than in how hard they’re willing to work going forward. Since then he founded a butcher shop, a bakery and took over the fire food and drink space on the opposite side of Shaker Square for a more casual eatery and dubbed it edwins too.
Edwins Leadership and Restaurant Institute
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