The LEE Initiative is an acronym for Let’s Empower Employment.
Our Mission
When we see a need for more diversity, equity, sustainability, and compassion in the restaurant industry, we will find innovative and impactful solutions.
We will create programs that make a real difference in the lives of the next generation of restaurant industry professionals.
We help our community and inspire others to get involved.
Our Backstory
Our co-founders, Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek, started The LEE Initiative in Louisville, KY in 2018 after they saw a need for a more diverse, compassionate, sustainable, and equitable restaurant industry. We wanted to redefine what it means to give back to our local community based on our research, our experiences and most of all, our instincts. We are in the business of hospitality, helping people, and solving problems. We put the needs of our guests first. So why should it be any different when we approach the complex social issues that arise in the restaurant industry?
Our Leadership
Chef Edward Lee
Co-founder, Chief Impact Officer
The LEE Initiative
Edward Lee is the Chef/Owner of 610 Magnolia in Louisville, KY and the Culinary Director for Succotash in National Harbor, Maryland and Succotash Prime in Penn Quarter, DC.
Chef Lee was the recipient of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for Writing for his book Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting Pot Cuisine. He is also the author of Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen (Artisan Books, May 2013). Lee has been a six-time finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast. In 2018, Food & Wine Magazine named 610 Magnolia one of the country’s most important restaurants of the past 40 years. The Michelin Guide DC awarded Succotash a Bib Gourmand in 2019.
Chef Lee appears frequently in print and television and his writing has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Food & Wine and many other national publications. He was nominated for a daytime Emmy for his role as host of the Emmy-winning series, Mind of Chef on PBS. He has hosted and written a feature documentary called Fermented.
In 2018, Chef Lee launched The LEE Initiative, which works to bring more diversity and equality to the restaurant industry. In 2020, the relief efforts of LEE Initiative has totaled more than $5 million of direct aid and has been recognized as one of the foremost organizations helping restaurant workers and farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Chef Lee won the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for his work with The LEE Initiative.
For more on Chef and his projects visit ChefEdwardLee.com
Our Staff
Our Board
