It started with a Facebook post. Founder Shoel Davidson wrote an honest account of a difficult year – from a major depressive episode and suicidal thoughts to finding a therapist and discovering new tools for coping with what he knew would be an ongoing process, and the frustrating time he had trying to find the resources he needed in those moments of crisis.
Over that year, he started conversations with his business partner, who also felt the frustration of not knowing how to help, who to reach out to, to help her friend. They in turn started to discuss the obvious issue with their peers – the restaurant industry is woefully underprepared and undereducated to deal with an omnipresent mental health crisis that has run rampant for decades, leaving a destructive trail of addiction, self-harm, and loss.
Those peers became the founding board for Mind The Bar, and their vision is what you see before you, and beyond.
At its core, Mind The Bar is a mental health resource, information & support system, and community hub designed for the hospitality industry, that focuses on the major issues of depression, anxiety, addiction & workplace harassment.
Its goal is to ultimately dismantle the negative stigma associated with mental health by changing the way we discuss, address & cope with it.