It’s 9:30 on a humid Thursday morning and I’m already perspiring through my moisture-wicking shirt. Next to me line cooks, sous-chefs, and other assorted restaurant workers clad in athleisure are limbering up in the middle of a narrow street in downtown Manhattan, the skyscrapers casting us into shadow in the sunny weather.
Before I’ve been able to fully come to terms with the fact that I’m about to run four sweaty miles across two boroughs with these people, we’re off, winding our way through Chinatown, running north toward the never-ending Williamsburg Bridge, and eventually over to our destination in the neighborhood.
This is Crown High Run Club, a group of runners from within the constellation of restaurants in the Kent Hospitality Group. Crown High is just one of many such clubs created by hospitality workers around the country in recent years. In Portland, Oregon, the French-inflected tasting menu restaurant Le Pigeon jogs together as Bird Dog Movement Club. The 86 Run Club in Los Angeles and Miami bills itself as a “Hospitality Run Club & Wellness Meetup,” and The Food Runners in Toronto have been clocking in miles for more than a decade.
The unique spirit of each run club reflects their respective restaurant kitchens. The chefs at Eleven Madison Park, who cook with rigorous Michelin-starred exactitude, often run Central Park’s hilly six-mile loop. “We get addicted to the feeling of pushing ourselves,” chef de cuisine Dominique Roy says. “But it’s competitive too.”
At Austin’s Comedor Run Club, chef Philip Speer emphasizes the physical and mental wellness aspects of fitness. “People come to the run club looking to make some changes and continue to use the community to stay sober,” he says. Many runs end with conchas baked by Speer himself and a meeting at Ben’s Friends, a sobriety support group for those interested.“
For Crown High the team dynamic crystallized after Jamal James Kent’s sudden passing in June 2024. He and his wife, Kelly, created the run club to give their staff a chance to get out of the kitchen and build camaraderie. Instead of post-shift drinks, they could spend an hour outdoors, shaking off the stress of the kitchen, getting in some miles together. After Kent passed away, the group transformed into a weekly run to grieve, to offer each other quiet support, and to keep Kent’s spirit joyfully alive, one mile at a time.
