A Conversation with Jasmin Parks Papadopoulos, Founder of CHOW
There’s something quietly radical about CHOW — Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness — and perhaps that’s because Jasmin Parks Papadopoulos doesn’t lead with noise. She leads with listening.
A third-generation chef who found herself spiraling in the same kitchens where she thrived professionally, Jasmin’s journey mirrors so many in the food world: relentless hustle, masked pain, and a deep longing for something more human.
After stepping away during the Great Resignation, she didn’t walk away from the industry — she returned with purpose. And in doing so, she built a lifeline for others still deep in it.
” The worse my mental health was, the better my career looked from the outside. “
Through CHOW, Jasmin is rewriting what support looks like in the food & beverage industry. Weekly peer groups, overdose prevention training, workplace wellness classes, and real talk about anxiety and addiction — this is not your traditional culinary curriculum. This is community care.
In the past year alone, CHOW hosted 28 free trainings across topics like QPR (suicide prevention), JEDI, ExPOS peer support, and their “Mindful Consumption” series aimed at shifting alcohol culture in hospitality. They launched the Green Room Project — creating rest and recharge spaces for event workers — and offered over 80 hours of 1:1 resource brokering, helping industry workers navigate mental health, substance use, and basic support needs.
From empowering baristas to speak up to providing hand massages for cooks at outdoor festivals, CHOW is living proof that healing the industry starts by listening to it.
We improve the lives of food/beverage/hospitality workers through shared stories, skills and resources.
While I was in the industry, I assumed that my struggle was very personal and applied only to me. I was diagnosed with High Functioning Anxiety very late in life, and the worst my mental health was, the better my career was doing. As a result of that, and how my anxiety made me show up as a well organized and methodical person, I never had to look too deeply at how I was struggling.
We know the food/beverage/hospitality industry faces disproportionately high rates of substance misuse and suicide. We lift each other up so that we lose no one else to mental health struggles, addiction, or suicide. We hold multiple weekly group discussion meetings online and in person, and offer classes in workplace wellness and both suicide and overdose prevention. We also can connect you with dozens of resources. We aim to create a sustainable workforce through community care so we can make the industry a healthier, saner place for all.
We started shortly before the pandemic and met only in person. As a result of the pandemic, our community grew stronger when we were able to integrate an online presence – this challenge has now allowed us to thrive and shape so much of our programming to make it accessible to all.
We are grateful for all of our partners and their impactful donations that have supported our work so far. We have been fortunate to have collaborated with restaurants on For a Cause partnerships, where businesses who align with CHOW’s mission and work closely with CHOW will create fundraising programs to support CHOW.
Food/beverage/hospitality workers are often underpaid, under supported and under represented and have little to no culture of speaking out about challenges. We are still new to conversations about mental health and few organizations and businesses allow for folks to show up as “their whole selves”, bringing their personhood into their work because so much of it is forward facing. We aim to educate about psychological safety, which encourages that piece to become a supportive, inclusive culture.
We would love for them to visit our website and check our free tools for businesses – our Workplace Wellness Toolkit and our Scripts for Challenging Conversations are great guidelines for how to shape culture, start conversations and support ourselves and our teams more effectively.
We would love for them to visit our website and check our free tools for businesses – our Workplace Wellness Toolkit and our Scripts for Challenging Conversations are great guidelines for how to shape culture, start conversations and support ourselves and our teams more effectively.
Historically, we’ve had very little to no representation in the media until recently. Largely, what was portrayed was a lot of the harsher and more damaging realities of the industry – challenging leaders, high stress environments, and so much more. We would love for the media to elevate the voices and missions of the impactful organizations that are committed to doing the work to make the industry a more sustainable place for all food/beverage/hospitality industry workers.
We hope to create a sustainable workforce where folks are empowered with the knowledge that there are resources available to them so that they may invest in themselves and their teams to incorporate wellness and mental health into their culture.
Let’s partner! CHOW loves collaboration and we encourage all folks starting out to seek out partners, collaborators, and shared missions to work with.
CHOW isn’t just responding — they’re leading. Through partnerships with mission-aligned restaurants, grants, and peer-powered programming, they’re building a blueprint for change.
Don’t go it alone. Let’s partner. Collaboration is everything.