Cooking With Kindness: Bruce Bromberg's Unique Approach to Leading Blue Ribbon Restaurants
Reality TV shows often depict chefs as cruel, heartless tyrants, willing to make their staff cry in pursuit of the perfect bite. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Just ask Bruce Bromberg (Anth’88). For the last three decades, he’s led a team of extraordinarily loyal staffers at Blue Ribbon Restaurants, the growing restaurant group he co-founded with his older brother Eric Bromberg in 1992.
Blue Ribbon started with one intimate eatery at the edge of New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. Since then, the company has expanded into different concepts — from sushi to bowling — and opened more than 20 locations nationwide.
Through it all, intentional leadership has been paramount to the team’s success.
“We wanted to create an environment where people flourished and wanted to come to work and wanted to learn, not just punch the clock,” said Bromberg. “We found that once we had that environment in place, everyone excelled.”
The results speak for themselves. Diners keep coming back to Blue Ribbon night after night — and so do its employees. Eleven of the 14 staffers who worked the restaurant’s opening night are still with the company more than 30 years later. Now, they’re all part-owners, too.
“[Eric and I] both worked in France in very oppressive and abusive kitchens,” said Bromberg. “They exist in America, they exist everywhere. But it was the last thing we wanted to have happen in our kitchens. There’s a better way.”
Bromberg’s own culinary journey started in his hometown of Morristown, New Jersey, where he grew up in a “very food-centric household.”
“Whether it was my grandmother and her traditional cooking or my father’s obsession with everything French, food was a really strong element in our childhood,” he said. “My father had a home in the south of France, and we would travel there in the summer and he would take us on day trips to every restaurant he could think of.”
Though many of his peers attended East Coast colleges and universities, Bromberg decided to head west. He enrolled at CU Boulder and majored in anthropology. When he graduated in 1988, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do next — only that he didn’t want a desk job — so he moved back to the East Coast. His brother, meanwhile, had studied at Le Cordon Bleu, the famed cooking school in Paris, and was running a restaurant in the Hamptons.
One evening, a chef where his brother was working called in sick, so Bromberg offered to pitch in and help.
“That was really it,” Bromberg said. “I spent that first night in the kitchen with Eric and was instantly enamored by the whole process.”
Bromberg followed his brother’s footsteps and headed to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu. When he returned, they went into business together and opened the first Blue Ribbon, a 48-seat “little hole in the wall,” he said. The name is a nod to their culinary training: Le Cordon Bleu means “the blue ribbon” in French.
The eatery was an overnight success, partly because it was open until 4 a.m. each day, attracting musicians, chefs, servers and other people who worked in hospitality and entertainment. The food, of course, was also a big draw.
Over 30 years later, Blue Ribbon’s sweeping success has only bolstered the brothers’ commitment to their people-first leadership approach.
“As a chef, I am a teacher. I’m constantly teaching. You have to be patient and respect every single individual in your environment until the last moment.”
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Photos Courtesy Blue Ribbon Restaurants