Note to Staff Regarding January 15th Incident at Cookbook on Larchmont

Dear Cookbook employees,

We want to communicate directly with you about a situation at Cookbook Larchmont that did not reflect the values we hold as a company, and share with you the steps we’re taking to make it right.

On Monday, a new manager at our Cookbook Larchmont location called the non-emergency police line after misrepresenting a situation with an employee to leadership and Human Resources, and the employee was later terminated. Immediately following this, our Human Resources team conducted a thorough review, and determined that the situation was misrepresented by the manager, the manager inappropriately escalated the situation with the employee, it was wrong to call the police, and the employee should not have been terminated.

It is extremely upsetting to us that a Black person was treated like this in a way that perpetuated harmful racial stereotypes. We truly regret how this employee was treated, and have offered them their job back with back pay for shifts that were missed, and we have terminated the manager involved.

Cookbook Larchmont is still new, and we are working through early growing pains to figure out how we can best fit into our community and serve our customers. As we work to install new, permanent management, our Director of Operations, Brad, will manage the location in the interim and will serve as the point person for our managers going forward to ensure all of our locations meet our standards: as welcoming spaces that provide great quality products. Please let him know if you have any questions or concerns. 

Our immediate focus is on making sure we have the right team in place to make Cookbook Larchmont a success – specifically, ensuring we are providing a safe work environment where people have clear expectations and feel supported. All of our employees deserve this, and our new leadership will be looking at how to strengthen our existing trainings, policies and protocols and committing to do better where we might fall short – ensuring we meet our standards as a company and our commitment to our employees.

Thank you,

Helen, Jon and Vinny