Lesbian Chef Deborah VanTrece On Navigating The Pandemic, Racism In Culinary Industry
Award-winning chef Deborah VanTrece is laying it all on the line. The highly-respected chef and owner of “Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Pours” in West Midtown has had to reinvent the model for her successful soul food restaurant more times than she could have ever imagined in 2020. But during times of uncertainty and stress, clarity is not often far behind–or in VanTrece’s case—the desire to no longer publicly sugarcoat the challenges brought on by the pandemic, and the racism that she and other Black colleagues have endured in professional kitchens long before the pandemic upended the restaurant industry.
VanTrece tells The Reckoning that she grew concerned as reports about a deadly virus impacting China in early 2020 made worldwide news, but she couldn’t imagine at the time the toll it would take on American lives and the industry that has provided her livelihood for over twenty years.
“The minute I heard back in January about issues with this problem in China, I knew then that this could be potentially bad, to the degree of how bad it was going to get, I was not prepared for that,” said VanTrece. “I did think that something could happen. I had no idea how bad it could get, though.”
VanTrece remained optimistic about her ability to keep “Twisted Soul” open during the early days of the pandemic. She got a head start on sanitation efforts by stocking up on essential items like disinfectants before they began flying off shelves, and met with staff to ensure them that the restaurant would adhere to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) protocols to safely remain open so they could continue to earn a paycheck.
“I told my staff at the end of February that I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we’d be okay, that they’d continue to work and that we’d be able to stay open,” said VanTrece. “That was the last week in February. The first week in March hits and that’s when Atlanta started getting hit a little bit. I started to see my reservations drop off severely for the upcoming weekend, and then I started to pay attention to all of the things we’d put in place,” she said.
“We’re cleaning [the restaurant] and being very deliberate so people would feel good about it [dining in]. I’d go in bathrooms after people and realize that my sink is dry, so you’re [customers] not washing your hands. I sat down at the end of a shift on a Sunday, the week after I told them I wouldn’t close, and told them that I can’t keep us safe now.”
VanTrece closed her thriving business out of an abundance of caution for the health of her staff and customers weeks before local government officials issued a mandate closing all restaurants for indoor dining. While necessary, it was a blow financially to the business and to many in Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ community that frequented her upscale restaurant presenting “soul food with a twist.”
Van Trece, wife (Lorraine) and daughter (Kursten)
“I have employees that come who are comfortable working in an environment that’s being run by someone in their community, there’s safety there,” said VanTrece.
“We’ve had trans, gender fluid, we have everyone that comes in to eat and even apply for a job. There’s no discrimination there. They come in with confidence as if they know that this is the place that I can go and I will be accepted no matter how I come in,” she said.
Like many business owners struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic, VanTrece along with her wife, Lorraine, who handles the businesses finances, and daughter Kursten, who runs the front of the house, took a hard pivot from a focus on indoor dining to focusing on to-go orders, or what VanTrece calls a “fast-food/slow concept” that included healthy farm-to-table options with poultry from local farmers.
“We’d never been on anyone’s delivery app. We never structured it as a take-out experience, it was about dining-in—a diversified audience, an audience that was friendly to the LGBTQ+ community, an audience-friendly to the African-American community, friendly to all communities, and that was what we’ve always pushed,” she said.
In addition to serving ‘pay as you can’ meals, VanTrece revisited “A Different Kind of Chic,” a pop-up restaurant idea she had before “Twisted Soul” became the crown jewel of Atlanta soul food cuisine.
“It was a concept that was getting a lot of buzz and it was growing,” said VanTrece. “The clients were coming in. People who didn’t know us were coming in and being very supportive. That’s what we did for quite a while—and then there were the riots.”
Main course with a side of racism
The images broadcast from Minneapolis, MN on May 25, 2020, of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on the neck of George Floyd, 46, an African-American man detained under suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill that resulted in his death and sparked national and international protests, awoke a sleeping giant within VanTrece, and while she says she’s “always been vocal, it seemed like a time when the sirens were getting louder.”
She shared her thoughts on racial inequality in America and her experiences with racism in professional kitchens throughout the country in a brutally honest op-Ed for food magazine “Bon Appétit.”
“It came from a place of pain. It came from a place of anger. It came from the desire to no longer sugarcoat this,” said VanTrece. “I spoke about it but in a very sugary way because I didn’t want to offend anyone. But when you look at the things that have happened to us as a people, they’ve been offensive. And they’ve resulted in the murders of so many people and it was just a breaking point for me. I thought, to hell with it. I’m gonna lay it all out on the line.”
And lay it all on the line, she did.
VanTrece recalls an early experience for “Bon Appétit” after graduating from culinary school as valedictorian and accepting a job as a sous-chef.
“Two months into the job, we were catering this huge corporate event, and we were behind on prep. The chef went home, but I opted to stay through the night. By the time he showed up the next morning, I had everything lined up and ready to go. I thought he’d be thankful, but instead, he told me: “I never would have hired a n-gger like you had I known how good you really were.” Then he said, “You can run back and tell everybody I said that, but it’ll be your word against mine.” And that’s exactly what happened. There was no recourse. I quit the next day.”
VanTrece further explains that not only is the presence of Black chefs considered a threat in some kitchens, but their skill sets and cuisine focus are often repeatedly called into question, leading some Black chefs to denounce soul food as professional cuisine altogether.
“I’ve heard so many Black chefs say, ‘I don’t do that kind of food.’ We have allowed other people to come in and set the standards of what is great, and we want a part of that conversation. The question of how other chefs would say to us, ‘That’s all you do?’ and I still hear that today,” said VanTrece. I’ll say over and over again, no one questions an Asian chef if all they do is Asian food. They revere them. No one does it to an Italian chef. Indian chefs can do their food. Everybody can do their cuisine without a problem except African-Americans. We cannot do traditional African-American food without it being ‘that’s all you can do?”
VanTrece also tells The Reckoning that she hopes up-and-coming Black chefs will not have to endure the level of racism she’s experienced and assumes the responsibility of breaking down barriers to make it so for the next generation.
“It is a responsibility of the blessing,” said VanTrece. “ I don’t want to see any other chefs, female, [people] of color, any other group be discriminated against, any other group have more difficulties than normal to do anything that they would want to do. I take the responsibility very seriously. It’s always in the forefront of my mind and the things that I do. How does this affect the people that come after me? Do I sometimes feel that it's an added pressure? Of course, it is. But it’s a pressure that I’m very willing and happy to accept if it helps those that are coming behind me to get where they’re going a little bit quicker.”
