Ellen Yin's Recipe for Hospitality Success and Uplifting Those Along the Way

Ellen Yin is nothing short of a powerhouse. A graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Yin had an early interest in restaurants and embarked on opening her own with an initial goal of staying open for five years. 

Now, over 25 years later, she is the founder and co-owner of High Street Hospitality Group (HSHG), which operates some of the country’s most-celebrated dining establishments, including a.kitchen + bar, Fork, High Street Restaurant & Bakery, High Street Hoagies, and The Wonton Project in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yin has become an emblem of Philadelphia’s dining scene, winning the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2023 and continuing to inspire diners and hospitality leaders alike.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we spoke with Yin about the values that have guided her as a hospitality leader, the importance of community, and how her identity as a woman has been a strength in pushing boundaries and achieving success in her career.

James Beard Foundation: Let’s start at the beginning of HSHG. What were your goals when you first set out to start your own business, and how have they evolved through its expansion?

Ellen Yin: My primary goal from the very beginning was to open a single restaurant and survive five years. From my perspective as a young person, I saw the restaurant as a place not only for people to come in and feel some sense of community and belonging, but also as a creative venture. The music, space, food, and service all need to be right and come together to create an experience, which I saw as an art form.

At that time [when I was opening my first restaurant, Fork], it was the beginning of the celebrity chef and chef-driven restaurants and my then-partner and I set out just to be open. Soon after we opened, it became apparent that we could grow and expand our revenue base in terms of hours of service and days of the week. But at that point, my business background started kicking in and I felt like I did want to grow to more than just one restaurant. 

JBF: Once you started thinking about expanding, was there a specific ethos that guided that process?

EY: Our focus was on sustainability, community, and connecting with farmers and other vendors who were integral to our success. I felt that being part of the community was the way to grow a business, so that has always been part of who High Street Hospitality Group was, even though [the restaurant group] didn't exist yet.  

When we expanded in 2013 to a.kitchen + bar and created the hospitality group, we started adding things like integrity and teamwork to our mission statement. We realized that to grow, we had to have a team in place as the backbone to expansion and some consistency between the different restaurants.  

During the pandemic, we really had to take a step backwards and rebuild what we thought of as important, and I think that teamwork and our internal community has become more important than ever before.

JBF: Speaking of community, I heard your panel at our Financial Literacy Workshop for Women and was moved to hear that employee benefits have been a given for HSHG and a part of the group’s identity from the start. Could you share more about that?

EY: Since I didn’t really have the background to run a restaurant, I had to look toward my entire team to help support that. The one thing I heard from servers was that they always felt that their profession hadn’t been well-respected. So, I felt from day one that pay, benefits, and security are important to making people feel that it is a profession.

JBF: As an established industry leader and beacon of wisdom for so many, what is the importance of mentorship from your perspective?

EY: I love supporting younger people and I need mentorship, still. We created the Sisterly Love Collective as a pandemic solution to help create a broader bond among women to be able to help each other. We’ve been able to create this network where one can feel comfortable asking questions. If anybody asks me to meet, I always say yes because I don't want anyone to feel that they can't ask for a meeting with anyone. And that was one of the outcomes of Sisterly Love—we have a network of 100+ women that new or aspiring business owners can reach out to and access.

JBF: That’s amazing, congratulations! In what ways do you think being a woman has contributed to your strength as a leader and business owner?

EY: This is an industry where there's such a broad range of businesses and people who become restaurateurs—from mom-and-pops, to immigrant-owned, to career changers, to people who have worked their way up through the industry. As a woman, I think my perspective on things is slightly different, as I’ve always had to be the odd person out. When it comes to norms, I’m more apt to be open to changing things because I don’t necessarily feel like things have to be any specific way.

My perspective is about the humanistic side of things, not just the financial component. I do want to be able to keep afloat, but making sure that people feel that they have a sense of belonging and that they have a familial kind of environment, but not too familial, is important to the success of a team. So those might be traits that are more female-oriented, but I'm sure that there are plenty of men out there who also feel that way.

There are a lot of things that women need out of the workplace that are unique and I feel I can be empathetic to those things—like maternity leave or taking care of children or the elderly.

JBF: What advice would you give to young women starting out their careers in hospitality?

EY: Dream big. And, whatever your vision of yourself is, don't give up on it. It might be a difficult road. But I think if your vision of yourself is ambitious and big enough, you'll figure out a path to get there.

For more Women's History Month stories from the Foundation, follow along on our channels through the month of March!

--
Yasmin Hariri is branded content manager at the James Beard Foundation.