Wharton Journal

Issue date: 2/1/10 Section: News

Late last semester forty members of Wharton's Culinary Club had the opportunity to attend a dinner at Fork restaurant in Old City and speak with its owner, Ellen Yin, W'87 and WG'93. Ellen left her job in project management at Jefferson Hospital in October 1996 to focus on opening a restaurant, and while working on getting the restaurant started, she made ends meet by doing some consulting work. She opened Fork in October 1997 with her partner Roberto Sella. The focus of the restaurant is to serve non-pretentious, fresh New American Bistro fare. Over wine and hors d'oeuvres, Ellen took questions from club members and spoke passionately about her experiences with the restaurant.

Ellen emphasized the importance of public relations in managing Fork's success. While new restaurants have a high failure rate, shortly after opening, Fork was fortuitous to have a write up in USA Today as "the" place to visit in Philadelphia, which gave the restaurant a large boost right away. She brought in a PR firm to work with the restaurant from its inception and is continuously thinking of ways to garner new and fresh publicity for the restaurant. One such recent event was the restaurant's Fisherman's Dinner, where Chef Terence Feury, Fishmonger Tony McCarthy, and about twenty guests went fishing in Barnegut Bay, and then had a meal prepared based on the day's catch. This event was covered in a feature article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Ellen attributes her restaurant's success over the past twelve years to constantly looking for ways to improve the restaurant, avoiding complacency, and looking for new ways to push the edge.

Ellen attributed Wharton with teaching her how to come up with a framework to think about and solve problems, which has helped her with the business. She also underscored the strength of the Wharton network in driving her business and connecting within the community. Ellen did admit, however, that her Wharton management classes did not fully prepare her to manage 60 people on the ground, which has been one of her biggest challenges.

Fork prides itself on its support of local food and sustainability, values which Ellen developed while working at Grey Dog Café as an undergraduate. Fork's menu is changed daily based on availability of ingredients and the chef's inspiration. The menu incorporates as much seasonal produce as possible. Fork has relationships with local farms who supply ingredients specifically for the restaurant. In the early days of the restaurant, Chilean Sea Bass was a successful menu item, however, she dropped it from the menu when the fish appeared on the over fished list. The restaurant has actually taken the farm names off of the menu item descriptions because according to Ellen, if you are one of the top restaurants in Zagat, it should be assumed that your food is coming from high quality sources.

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