Erik Bruner-Yang
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“Helping other people achieve what they want to achieve: That’s my way of making change,” is what Erik Bruner-Yang told District Fray Magazine in early June.
On the tail end of another COVID-19 surge, the restaurant industry is still recovering from mass lay-offs and closures. It was a crisis that many didn’t expect, but Bruner-Yang wasted no time taking action with the launch of the Power of 10 Initiative. Bruner-Yang and his nonprofit team worked to raise $10,000 weekly, subsidizing 10 full-time jobs for laid-off restaurant workers and providing 1,000 meals to frontline workers.
“The Power of 10 aims to change that fate for as many restaurants in as many cities as possible, by empowering them to employ their staff, maintain their operations, and feed the people in their communities who need meals the most,” he explains.
It’s a simple concept with an enormous impact. Already, The Power of 10 donated 350,000 meals, and turned what was once a rapid-response effort into a long-term program.
Success for the DC restaurateur isn’t about how many restaurants he owns—at one point, he operated seven—but helping newcomers access the opportunities he once needed.
Having made his culinary mark on such D.C institutions as ABC Pony, Toki Underground, Brothers and Sisters, and Spoken English at The Line, Bruner-Yang is a self-identified member of the food scene’s old guard. Currently the owner of Taiwanese-Cambodian café Maketto, Yoko & Kota food stall, and Shopkeepers corner store, he remains committed to community efforts to end hunger in D.C—and beyond.
Fresh off an international stint serving meals to Ukrainian refugees through the World Central Kitchen, Bruner-Yang is grateful for any opportunity to be of service. “I definitely left feeling I didn’t accomplish much — there’s so much to do,” he says of his time on the Poland-Ukraine border.
From food justice to sustainability, there’s no shortage of wicked problems to solve in the food world, and Bruner-Yang is more than ready for the challenge.