Edible Sacramento Fall 2022

Opposite: Patrick and Bobbin Mulvaney at Mulvaney’s B & L in Sacramento; This page, clockwise from top: At Mulvaney’s, Del Gibbs consults on the menu with Amity Fideldy; Efrain Flores works in the restaurant’s dish pit; Patrick talks to his sta‚ before a shift

I was five years old when I hadmy first memorable episode of depression. I locked myself in the bathroom, sat in the dark, and sobbed. I never told anyone about the depth of my sadness, not even my parents. Like one in every five Americans who live with mental illness, I navigated decades of my life undiagnosed and untreated. As a result, I spent more than 20 years battling bouts of su icidal ideation and struggling with drug and alcohol abuse — all while somehow managing to build an arguably notable career in Sacramento restaurants and agriculture. In my case, my undiagnosed mental illness was exacerbated by the pressures, stress, and excesses of the restaurant industry. For others, those stressors are the catalysts for the onset of their mental health struggles. Of the 15 million workers in American restaurants, 17 percent have been diagnosed with substance abuse disorders — far more than any other profession. FROM VULNERABILITY COMES STRENGTH In 2018 and 2019, the Sacramento restaurant community was hit especially hard by this reality, experiencing a cluster of overdoses and suicides, including the death of beloved local chef Noah Zon ca, at the age of 41.

Four years after Zonca’s passing, chef Patrick Mulvaney still gets emotional when he talks about the loss of his longtime friend and colleague. “People leave, and it hurts,” Patrick shares, with tears in his eyes. “But what they leave behind is a gift … their loss has impact, and that impact can create action.” Patrick and his wife, Bobbin Mulvaney, his partner in Sacra mento restaurant Mulvaney’s Building & Loan (B&L), took ac tion by hosting a series of mental health trainings for restaurant workers to recognize the warning signs of suicide and self-harm, in partnership withmental health experts fromSutter Health and Kaiser Permanente. That e˜ort quickly evolved into I Got Your Back (IGYB), an initiative aimed at educating managers and em ployees about how to create a culture of acceptance and communi cation about mental health in their restaurants, as well as provid ing emergency resources for thosewhomay be in immediate crisis. “We take care of others,” Bobbin says. “‘May I bring youmore water? How is your meal? Let me take care of your every need’ … It’s part of who we are. I Got Your Back is about taking our super power, which is hospitality, and turning it onto ourselves.” To help the B&L team open up to the IGYB process, the Mul vaneys knew they would have to lead by example by embracing

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