Brandon Edwin Chrostowski wants to get into yet another jail.
The founder of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute told a packed house at the Geauga Economic Leadership breakfast Oct. 7 his goal is to find another jail or prison where he can start one more program to train inmates into fledgling chefs.
Although his restaurant, EDWINS, on Shaker Square, is a haute cuisine success, the dynamic Chrostowski continues to pay back at least two debts.
He told the crowd at Kent State University – Geauga he got very lucky when he was 18 and faced a felony that could have put him in prison for 10 years.
The Detroit judge let him off with a year’s probation, earning the teen’s long-term gratitude, but there was more luck to come.
“I wound up on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit,” he said.
Fortunately, he found a berth in a restaurant and a mentor who recognized the young man’s potential.
“He taught me that perfect practice makes perfect,” Chrostowski said, which paved the way for him to earn an associate’s degree at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and apprentice with Charlie Trotter, who taught him “there really are no limits.”
Chrostowski went to a culinary school in Paris in 2001 — although he didn’t speak any French — because he was driven.
“I had to be the best chef,” he said, adding hard work earned him respect and guidance in his chosen field.
Then he came back to the U.S. because he missed baseball and wanted to build something worthwhile. He wrote a business plan in 2004 and, with a lot of help, EDWINS was launched.
The institute’s prison outreach was born from a mixture of his love of the culinary arts and the disquieting calls he received from old friends in Detroit.
“The sweetest people I knew were getting killed. People were getting sent to prison,” he said, adding the U.S. has about a quarter of the prison population in the world, it costs about $74 billion a year to house them and half who get released are back in jail within three years.
Chrostowski and his staff have taught basic culinary skills to 150 inmates and only two have been incarcerated again, he said.
“Something is working. The retention rate is amazing,” he said. “Everyone we hire comes from prison. We don’t care about the crime.”
Restaurants line up to hire the men and women who have gone through the EDWINS program and the institute has 90 percent placement, Chrostowski said.
“The mission is to help men and women returning home from prison develop their goals as leaders,” he said.
When someone has been through the penal system, they have been dehumanized, Chrostowski said.
If they are given the skills to work so they can get a job on the outside, their chances of staying out of prison are much improved, he said, adding the six-month program includes a once-a-week life skills class, as well.
Prisons are generally good with the program because it is free to the state, and the lower recidivism rate is a plus for wardens, Chrostowski said.
However, there are problems to solve. About half the students who start, drop out. When prisoners who have been through the program are released and come to work at EDWINS, they may need a place to stay, so Chrostowski built a dormitory. Childcare for the women is another hurdle the staff can help with.
He credits his staff with making the program and the restaurant a success.
“There’s nothing else like this in the country. It’s not a team built with Xs and Os and statistics. It’s a team made up of people who know how to make this work,” he said.
Getting his culinary skills program into a jail is not always easy, but Chrostowski said he is very persistent.
“I’m not a brain surgeon. I peel carrots,” he said, adding he has to be stubborn. “I stop by (the prison) and visit and don’t stop visiting until we get an answer.”
When a new class begins, the prisoners often don’t have any confidence.
“People don’t feel human,” he said.
But the program gives them a challenge they can meet, skills they can learn and helps them “build back the steam,” Chrostowski said.
“There’s nothing better than seeing them enjoy something they didn’t know they would enjoy,” he said.
