To Our Piada Team

Piada Family,

The events of the last week have left us sorrowful, disillusioned, and broken. Every news cycle has been stressful at best, and heartbreaking at worst. It is more apparent than ever that we as a nation are long overdue for meaningful and systemic change.

Diversity of color and thought are at the core of Piada’s culture. It’s about treating people with understanding, respect, and compassion regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or disability. We celebrate inclusion, demand tolerance, and condemn racism. Black lives matter.

We’ve been humbled by those of you who’ve peacefully protested and marched for the betterment of our society, made donations, signed petitions, and have had the hard conversations. We want you to know that we see you and support you. Thank you for holding our nation’s leaders accountable for the atrocities committed against the black community. We understand that change can be a challenging process, and that process begins with listening, learning, and reflecting. It will undoubtedly be an uphill battle.

Piada’s leaders have signed a letter addressed to Columbus City Council supporting the recently passed resolution declaring racism a public health crisis.

To reinforce our commitment to this cause, it is important that we look inward and reflect on our practices to determine what we can collectively do to ignite change. As a first step, all Piada Team Members, Chefs and Home Office will receive a link to complete annual diversity training next week. The goal of this training is to reinforce our commitment to education, diversity and inclusion, and reduce implicit and explicit bias in the workplace.

We’ll be following up in the coming weeks with our donation commitments and additional steps we are taking. We are researching local organizations in each market so that we can make a thoughtful impact in each of our communities.

We’ve provided a great list of resources below. We fully encourage you all to continue your education on this important topic, just as we will be.

Your voice matters. If you have feedback or ideas how we can better make a difference, please reach out directly to Matt Harding and Lance Juhas.

Racism has no place in our communities or in our restaurants. We must demand better of each other, for each other.

Thank you,
Chris Doody, Matt Harding, Lance Juhas & Jason Souder

Books

• “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi
• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
• “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood,” by Trevor Noah
• “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” by Michelle Alexander
• “Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor,” by Layla F. Saad
• “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower,” by Brittney Cooper
• “Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity,” by C. Riley Snorton

Movies

• Free to Ride
• The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (Netflix)
• 13th (Netflix)
• Just Mercy (Prime Video)
• The Black Power Mixtape 1967- 1975 (Prime Video)
• BlackkKlansman (Prime Video)

Podcasts/Specific Episodes

• Code Switch/NPR
• The Daily: “The Systems That Protect the Police”
• Reply All: “The Crime Machine” (Parts 1-4)
• Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
• Pod For The Cause/The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• Pod Save the People/Deray Mckesson
• 2 Dope Queens (For lighter listening!)

Articles

• “Food Has Always Been Political,” by Adam Rapoport
• “Teaching Your Child About Black History,” by Nefertiti Austin
• “How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change,” by Barack Obama
• “A Timeline of Events That Led to the 2020 'Fed Up'-rising,” by Michael Harriot
• “Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?,” by Ibram X. Kendi
• “We are not okay. And you shouldn’t be either,” by Meg Guliford