It’s 9:30 on a humid Thursday morning and I’m already perspiring through my moisture-wicking shirt. Next to me line cooks, sous-chefs, and other assorted restaurant workers clad in athleisure are limbering up in the middle of a narrow street in downtown Manhattan, the skyscrapers casting us into shadow in the sunny weather.
Before I’ve been able to fully come to terms with the fact that I’m about to run four sweaty miles across two boroughs with these people, we’re off, winding our way through Chinatown, running north toward the never-ending Williamsburg Bridge, and eventually over to our destination in the neighborhood.
This is Crown High Run Club, a group of runners from within the constellation of restaurants in the Kent Hospitality Group. Crown High is just one of many such clubs created by hospitality workers around the country in recent years. In Portland, Oregon, the French-inflected tasting menu restaurant Le Pigeon jogs together as Bird Dog Movement Club. The 86 Run Club in Los Angeles and Miami bills itself as a “Hospitality Run Club & Wellness Meetup,” and The Food Runners in Toronto have been clocking in miles for more than a decade.
The unique spirit of each run club reflects their respective restaurant kitchens. The chefs at Eleven Madison Park, who cook with rigorous Michelin-starred exactitude, often run Central Park’s hilly six-mile loop. “We get addicted to the feeling of pushing ourselves,” chef de cuisine Dominique Roy says. “But it’s competitive too.”
At Austin’s Comedor Run Club, chef Philip Speer emphasizes the physical and mental wellness aspects of fitness. “People come to the run club looking to make some changes and continue to use the community to stay sober,” he says. Many runs end with conchas baked by Speer himself and a meeting at Ben’s Friends, a sobriety support group for those interested.“
For Crown High the team dynamic crystallized after Jamal James Kent’s sudden passing in June 2024. He and his wife, Kelly, created the run club to give their staff a chance to get out of the kitchen and build camaraderie. Instead of post-shift drinks, they could spend an hour outdoors, shaking off the stress of the kitchen, getting in some miles together. After Kent passed away, the group transformed into a weekly run to grieve, to offer each other quiet support, and to keep Kent’s spirit joyfully alive, one mile at a time.
A few miles into our run, after the dark, damp scaffolding tunnels, past cramped sidewalk vegetable vendors, we crested the steep Williamsburg Bridge. The incline left my legs burning and my breath ragged, and my pace slowed despite my best efforts. As if on cue, another runner slowed to jog beside me as we fell behind the group. Had teamwork become an unconscious habit after years of cooking together on the line? Drenched in sweat, the group was all smiles hitting the bridge’s descent, the final leg before our finish line, Birdee, Kent Hospitality’s new bakery and café. Awaiting us were fried egg sandwiches—lacy-edged whites with a sunshine yellow yolk, creamy American cheese, and pork jowl bacon so perfectly salty-smoky I could have cried, cuddled up on a pillowy brioche bun. Outside, as runners munched their pastries, someone pointed out the street sign. Appropriately, we’d found ourselves on Kent Avenue.
Meet the Runners
Kelly Kent, partner at Kent Hospitality Group, remembers watching her late husband train for the New York City Marathon. When she finally signed up for her first half marathon, he helped her train. “He ran with me the whole time,” she says. When she graduated to marathons, he cheered her on from the sidelines every year. “He’d make the biggest poster possible of my head,” she remembers, laughing. Jamal passed on a Saturday, and when a group came together at Crown Shy the next day to grieve, many of them asked Kelly if she planned on canceling Monday’s scheduled run. But nearly a hundred coworkers, friends, and supporters showed up that morning. “We ran,” she says. “This is how we coped.”
Jerry Francois, running coach, runs like water in a brook—smooth, bouncing up and down, and, yes, babbling. As Crown High’s coach, he’s the unofficial mid-run hypeman. It’s possible there’s never been someone as enthusiastic about running as Francois. On a recent run I watched him click his heels six consecutive times. But Francois is more than a good vibes machine. When members have shown up without running shoes, he’s stepped in. “Tommy wanted to get back into running, but he didn’t have the best shoes,” Francois recalls. At the next meetup, Francois gifted him a new pair. “I just remember how much his face lit up,” he says. Months later Tommy signed up for the New York City Marathon. “This is what Jamal wanted us to be a part of,” Francois says.
Paul Jaramillo, a devoted Crown High member (second from the left), began working with Kent Hospitality five years ago and was one of the first runners Kent recruited into the inaugural club. “Chef James pulled me out on the patio at SAGA one day and he's like, ‘Look, man, you need to get your ass back to run club. If you don't come, no one else comes,’” he recalls. Jaramillo’s been on nearly every CrownHigh run ever since. “With his passing and trying to maintain his legacy, I try not to miss any.”
