Bowery restaurant owner serves up sobriety for staff

The first noticeable trait about the 41-year-old Seahawks superfan is a baseball cap and two full sleeves of tattoos; the most interesting of which is a drawing of Julia Child’s recipe for mussels. However, the story of Todd Andrews’ and his restaurant is inspirational for those interested in sobriety.

“Getting sober allowed me to kind of double down on what I wanted to do with my life … ” Andrews said. “And that was to own and operate restaurants and be a beneficial part of the community.”

Because the hospitality industry is known for its correlation with alcohol abuse, Andrews has created a sober environment for his staff at Bowery , which opened at 230 W. Riverside Ave. in June.

“We’re a place where someone who’s trying to stay off the sauce has a little more support than your average restaurant, so I’m really proud of that.”

Andrews says it wasn’t his intent to create “a safe space for people in the industry who are already sober or questioning their alcohol or drug abuse. It just kind of happened. … but now I feel I have a responsibility to allow that to grow.”

Andrews began cooking in high school and “fell in love with it.” He attended college with aspirations of becoming a lawyer, but after cooking his way through college, Andrews returned to the kitchen . He grew up in the Seattle area and moved to Brooklyn, New York, as an adult and lived there for 10 years, working as a chef.

After battling through personal obstacles , Andrews has been sober for eight years.

“I think it’s an important topic to talk about in my industry. The restaurant industry didn’t make me an alcoholic and a drug addict. I did all that on my own,” Andrews said. “But the direct correlation with mainly alcohol makes it really easy for people in restaurants to kind of get trapped in. I know that’s kind of how it was for me.

“I both loved working in restaurants and loved the industry and late nights,” he continued. “At a certain point, I realized that it was a problem in my life, and I had a hard time stopping. I had an incredible support system, including two wonderful people in New York who helped me keep my head on straight for the first year or two.”

While Andrews is constantly around alcohol as the manager and executive chef , he says he does not struggle with staying on course with his 12-step program.

“My life is exponentially better since I quit drinking, so I’ve been able to keep that as a barometer for how I interact with alcohol,” he said. “I’m not trying to save the world or get everybody sober, but I know for me, I can’t drink and live a normal life. It’s been almost nine years since I had a drink, so I’ve got some good habits and routines, and I’m pretty happy with my place in the world these days.”

According to www.alcohol.org, alcohol and substance abuse can be a struggle for those who work in hospitality because of the high stress and easily accessible alcohol.

Andrews says he manages his restaurant like “a guy who’s in recovery.”

“It’s not lost on me that booze is one of the reasons people are drawn to restaurants and that I’m in the booze business,” Andrews said. “My focus is more on the employee side of what will make us successful and what will make people remember Bowery. When you drink at work, your behavior changes. If we are hospitality-driven, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal that we are giving our best every shift.”

Bowery is the first restaurant Andrews has owned on his own, and his staff has high praise for his professionalism and management style.

“It’s a really healthy environment,” said Obi Noble, a chef at the restaurant. “Everyone pitches in to help each other to create the best possible experience for customers. This is one of the most stress-free environments I’ve worked in. … Todd is super positive, and he actually cares about his employees. ”

Noble was offered the position of chef de cuisine at Bowery but declined because he plans to move to Texas in the fall. Noble decided it would be better to work at Bowery during his last few months in Spokane due to the negative environment of his previous job.

“I chose to come here because the staff at my last job would constantly be drunk or hungover on the job,” Noble said. “There aren’t too many restaurants in Spokane that allow up-and-coming chefs to express themselves like you can here. Todd is not opposed to change and is committed to culinary creativity.

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Andrews emphasizes that it is completely acceptable when employees drink outside of work, but that it is important to separate work and home behaviors.

“We have staff that do drink outside of work, which I support 100%,” he said.

“Shift drinks,” Andrews says are another story.

“Shift drinks are a pretty common thing in restaurants – you get off work, and the house buys you a drink,” he said. “The problem is, sometimes that drink turns into two or three, and before you know it, you’ve lost the focus of what we’re doing here: trying to bring a dining experience to Spokane that shows that we’re giving it our all.”

He says the no-shift-drink policy is not to punish employees that drink, but “it’s to create an environment where the people that don’t drink or are in the first stages of sobriety don’t feel pressured to have that shift drink. … What I’m hoping to curve is a work environment where people feel pressured to be something that maybe they don’t want to be.”

Assistant manager Sarah Heffern had all good things to say about that experience.

“I was employed at a bar, and I was tired of working late nights; I wanted to come into the restaurant industry and do something that didn’t rely completely on me,” Heffern said. “A good friend recommended this was a solid place to be, and it was an easy process where we all got along really well. Todd and I have become close; he’s a great communicator.”

More about the restaurant

Andrews moved from Brooklyn to Spokane in 2020 to be closer to his parents. He knew when he came to Spokane he wanted to open a French restaurant.

“I took a look around and realized that there were not a lot of French-inspired restaurants in Spokane. I took a look at the space and the town, and it reminded me of the old buildings in Brooklyn I used to work in,” Andrews said. “It has such a touch of old French Bistro, and I saw the opportunity to bring a style of food to Spokane that it doesn’t really have right now. I want to show people there’s nothing pretentious and scary about French food. I loved the idea of creating a place that is community-driven, and I’m excited to meet the city.”

Andrews signed a lease in 2022 on the vacant building on Riverside. Since signing the lease, Riverside has had a number of renovations (including a new apartment complex) and road work, which will create more opportunities for Bowery to generate customers.

It took Andrews and his team about 13 months to fix up the restaurant and bring it up to city code. The old-fashioned brick interior of the building provides a comfortable, sophisticated vibe .

During renovations , the only thing that didn’t come down was the brick because of its historical value.

The building has been used in many different ways throughout generations.

According to Andrews, the building has been a jail, a firehouse, a movie theater, restaurants and a variety of bars, including Garageland, which closed at the location in October 2020. In the basement are remnants of a prohibition speakeasy.

“I think the space is unique,” Heffern said. “My dad was in the Air Force in the 1980s, and this was Henry’s Pub – the pub that he would often come to. He was really excited when I told him I would be working here.”

Bowery opened June 24, but with Hoopfest and Fourth of July, the restaurant didn’t jump into full gear until a few days later.

The restaurant employs 18 people . Each shift, Andrews has three chefs working alongside him and three others as hostesses and bartenders.

The meaning of “bowery” is rooted in an Old English word for “dwelling place,” and it is the name of a neighborhood in New York. Through the first few weeks of Bowery’s existence, there has been an abundance of positive customer feedback. The overwhelming favorite on the menu so far has been the pork chop.

Liam Bradford, of Lakeland High School, is a member of The Spokesman-Review’s Teen Journalism Institute, a paid high school summer internship program funded by Bank of America and Innovia Foundation. As the only paid high school newspaper internship in the nation, it is for local students between the ages of 16 and 18 who work directly with senior editors and reporters in the newsroom. All stories written by these interns can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor. Bradford can be reached at (509) 459-5497 or by email at liamb@spokesman.com.