Dinner Rush is a burgeoning online community dedicated to uplifting and supporting members of the food and beverage industry. On the surface, it's a streetwear brand made by and for members of the industry. Everything is designed in small batches by Tony LaQuatra, a veteran of the design industry, and, more recently, a dedicated member of the food and beverage industry.
Looking a bit deeper, you’ll find that Dinner Rush is two-pronged. Beyond the line of streetwear is a full-fledged online community where industry members can seek advice, connections and support from one another through an industry-only Discord server. “It’s like an after-hours industry bar that’s online, and it’s always accessible,” he says.
LaQuatra has been working as a line cook since the pandemic and is currently working under the tutelage of chef-owner of the Pickled Pig, Gary Leybman. However, LaQuatra is a designer by trade. In high school, he got a job at a concert-booking business, where he made merch for touring bands and started falling in love with the design process. He went on to study design, work in marketing and eventually open a small design business with friends, but it fell victim to the pandemic alongside thousands of other small businesses. Following such a loss, LaQuatra decided to turn to a familiar trade for a change of pace and started working in restaurants.
“I’m a product of the restaurant industry,” he says. His father and mother met working at a hotel restaurant in the Bond Court building in Cleveland (now known as the AECOM building). His father was a chef and his mother a server. Growing up with parents in the industry, LaQuatra has always wholeheartedly believed that folks up and down the industry pipeline deserve more recognition than they receive. "My dad was pretty big in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it would be cool for him to get the recognition he deserves," he says.
Born from this sentiment was Dinner Rush, a space where chefs, servers, bartenders, baristas and the like could find community with one another. LaQuatra took his budding excitement about the restaurant industry and merged it with his long-running love for design. “As I got older, became a father and got sober last year, I wanted to revisit some of the things I used to love. I missed making t-shirts, and I get to use the culmination of everything I learned in marketing and design over the years,” he says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to make some shirts, see if people like them, maybe make some side money.’ Then it kind of just evolved into what it is today.”
LaQuatra heads up Dinner Rush by himself. He’s the creative director, lead designer, head of marketing, webmaster, logistics coordinator and everything else that goes into this passion project. Drawing inspiration from his years designing metal band t-shirts, some shirts read “PUNISH BAD TIPPERS,” complemented by a quote from the late Anthony Bourdain: “If you’re a cheap tipper, by the way, or rude to your server, you are dead to me. You are lower than whale feces.” Others say “IN THE WEEDS” above an overflowing ticket printer, an expo station lined with dishes ready to be served and a chef in apparent distress.
What’s the point of calling out the negative parts of the industry? As they say, misery loves company. Working long and odd hours, vying for tips to pay the bills and providing an essential, but often thankless service to a relentless stream of customers can feel disheartening. “My dad told me my whole life not to get in the industry…for a good reason, I guess,” he laughs. “But no –– I love it.”
On the other side of that same coin are the many beauties of this industry. It’s a true melting pot filled with people of all backgrounds, where creativity is not only encouraged, but rewarded. Not to mention the satisfaction in the simplicity of making something beautiful with your own two hands for someone to nourish themselves with. “There’s tons of creative people in the industry, people that are writers, poets, artists outside of the kitchen. Working in a field like the restaurant industry that forces you to be creative pushes you to be creative in other areas of your life as well,” LaQuatra says.
He calls out his design skills that have transferred surprisingly well into his day-to-day work as a line cook. Plating comes naturally to him: finding colors and textures that are complementary and lift each other up and playing with symmetry and space to offer a feast to the eyes first before offering it up to the palate.
Beyond creating a streetwear brand to scratch an itch for design, LaQuatra wanted Dinner Rush to be a space where industry creatives could meet, share ideas and skills, commiserate and find support among like-minded folks. “I’m in this industry, and I have this other skill set. I know there are other people like me out there. I’ve met them. How can we bring them together and create something awesome that’s outside of the kitchen?” he says.
He launched an industry-only Discord server shortly after his first Dinner Rush drop. Part of the inspiration for the community was the concept of a motorcycle club, a group of rejects finding community in one another. “Something I love so much about the industry was how accepting everybody was to me personally. It was like, ‘We don’t care where you came from. We don’t care who you are. We’re your family now.’” LaQuatra says. “That’s kind of what I’m going for.”
Since its inception, the server has over a dozen channels, each a dedicated space serving a unique purpose. #recipe-share is full of images of beautifully plated dishes and whole hogs moments prior to breakdown. #sober reads post after post of chefs checking in with each other about their sobriety goals, struggles and successes. #support is a space to share GoFundMe campaigns benefitting colleagues fighting health battles or grieving the loss of friends in the industry.
“I’ve heard that people in the industry don’t even feel comfortable talking about stuff that they need support for,” LaQuatra says. “So that was kind of where the idea came from. You know, we serve so many other people that we forget to take care of ourselves.”
Learn more about Dinner Rush at dontburnthefood.com.This story is featured in CityBeat's Sept. 18 print edition.
