As devastating wildfires raged in Los Angeles in January, the city’s hospitality industry rallied to feed firefighters. Aron Pobereskin, a chef by trade who became much more than that during this crisis, was front and center at the Will Rogers State Beach base camp as he coordinated 36,000 meals for the Los Angeles Fire Department and other first responders.
What Pobereskin did and what he plans to do next is a story about the generosity of the hospitality industry and the power of the contacts who already exist in your phone—if you know how to deploy them. It’s also about the small and big decisions that can alter the path of your life.
“People always say they’re going to do something, and then they don’t really deliver,” LAFD Captain Chris Stine tells Observer. “That’s common. One thing that sets Aron apart is that he actually delivered. When things like this happen, you’ve got a lot of people coming out. Some people work out well, and some people have the wrong intentions. You kind of have to sift through all that. I feel like Aron has proven he’s in it for the right reason.”
Stine, who is president of the Los Angeles Firemen’s Relief Association (LAFRA), is now working with Pobereskin on a new initiative called 25 Families that will support displaced firefighters with food and cooking equipment.
Pobereskin, who cut his teeth at Alinea and Noma as a teenager after steakhouses and diners rejected him for being too young and inexperienced, quit his job developing consumer-packaged goods in early January. He knew he wanted to do something community-oriented. And then the wildfires started.
Pobereskin, who previously worked with prominent chefs like Jonathan Benno, Alex Stupak, April Bloomfield and Adam Perry Lang, joined friends who volunteered to help with relief meals at the Border Grill/Socalo food truck.
“I posted a picture that I was here at the Pasadena Convention Center on my Instagram story, and people started to respond,” Pobereskin tells Observer. “I really believe that decisions are made by the people who show up. I was someone who showed up, and that was enough for me to start making decisions and taking control.”
Food events producer Caryl Chinn called Pobereskin and put him in touch with Eataly, which was willing to provide thousands of meals. Pobereskin reached out to Jacob Shure of Shure Hospitality, who donated disposables like food containers, cups and cutlery. Alex Jermasek of Cream Co. offered meat. Michael Brombart of Worldwide Produce said he would also donate product.
Suddenly, Pobereskin knew he could supply food in mass quantities, so he got in touch with LAFD contacts and volunteered to feed the Will Rogers base camp. He knew that my Industry Only events company throws parties with many Los Angeles chefs, so he inquired about mobilizing my network of restaurants. He also texted me and Chinn (who had recently helped me launch Industry Only’s Race Week food festival at Resorts World Las Vegas) because he needed insulated storage to transport meals. Like many in the hospitality industry, I wanted to help, but didn’t really know what to do until Pobereskin texted. I connected with restaurateur Jerry Greenberg, who got Uber Eats to send the base camp storage bags. Pobereskin also received temperature-controlled storage from Yeti after contacting Moo’s Craft Barbecue.
The network was growing, and so was the desire to feed people. Greenberg is part of four restaurant businesses; KazuNori, Uovo, HiHo Cheeseburger and Matū, that made the Will Rogers base camp thousands of meals.
“Restaurants wanted to help, and they didn’t know the path forward,” Greenberg says. “Aron enabled a ton of people to actually help in a meaningful way.”
Greenberg, who travels the world in search of the best ingredients and who runs analytical, systems-based businesses, is not an easy man to impress. But like the LAFD, he quickly grew to admire Pobereskin.
“Unfortunately, disasters happen, and it is hard to organize in these situations,” Greenberg tells Observer. “Aron was unbelievably organized, connected and responsive. There are so many people who would have made a mess out of each delivery. It’s extremely hard to bring people to bear in the moment, and I was blown away that he was so on top of it when so many different things were going on at once. It was amazing.”
When the National Guard needed breakfast at Will Rogers, Tacos 1986 made hundreds of burritos, paid for by restaurant-financing company inKind, which also supported meals from Prince Street Pizza and Uncle Paulie’s Deli. Genghis Cohen, which would later host a dinner to feed the heroes who fed the heroes, delivered New York-style Chinese food to the base camp. The L.A. Pizza Alliance got Triple Beam Pizza to cook on-site at Will Rogers. Pobereskin boosted morale day after day as he brought in great food from restaurants, including Kismet Rotisserie, Leora and Bites & Bashes Cafe.
In the middle of all this, many of us wanted to move the load away from small, independent restaurants. So we got Sweetgreen involved at the base camp. Catch made short ribs and chicken with support from OpenTable. Sarah Rosenberg, who runs Wicked Good Media in New York, reached out to Panda Express and Din Tai Fung and got them to send over meals.
LAFD Captain Tommy Kitahata was Pobereskin’s initial contact at Will Rogers, and they became close as they coordinated meal orders and distribution together.
“What he did was huge,” Kitahata tells Observer. “Not only is it nourishment, but it’s also timeliness. He brought breakfast, lunch and dinner. We would take food out to the fire line, so our people wouldn’t have to drive into camp to pick up. Toward the end, it was 1,500 to 2,000 meals a day. We fed the LAPD. We fed the National Guard. We fed all these different entities that are vital parts of this fire campaign. Aron is driven, just like us firefighters, to serve the community.”
It wasn’t just food that Pobereskin coordinated—it was an entire supply chain. He got cars and staff from EV manufacturer Rivian for deliveries and logistics. He collaborated with a new friend, Alexey Savin, to source Starlinks, solar-powered phone chargers and sunglasses in response to LAFD needs. The National Guard, which was camping at Will Rogers, requested waterproof flip-flops for shower safety, so Uncle Paulie’s Deli owner Paul James reached out to Lusso Cloud co-founder Chris Noyes. Noyes, whose father was a major in the National Guard for two decades, sent over a few hundred pairs of designer slides.
Along the way, Pobereskin connected with his friend Jeff Strauss, the chef who runs OyBar in Studio City. They talked about how the hospitality industry could continue to provide relief.
“The thing that has been just eye-opening about all of this is the breadth and intensity and focus of response of people in an industry that is struggling to survive itself,” Strauss says. “And their first instinct was to take care of everybody else.”
Strauss was already in the process of creating a nonprofit called Out of the Fire, which aims to provide infrastructure that helps displaced families feed themselves. Pobereskin and Strauss quickly realized they should join forces, and Pobereskin used his relationships with both the city and county fire departments to get a list of displaced firefighter families.
He and Strauss have now launched their 25 Families initiative as the first phase of Out of the Fire. (I’ve agreed to be part of their advisory board.) The first 25 Families fundraiser will be during a March 1 private event hosted by Racquet at the home of Röckenwagner Bakery’s Patti and Hans Rockenwagner. Through an alliance with inKind, every $10,000 raised at this event can be converted into $15,000 worth of dining gift cards for displaced firefighter families.
The goal for 25 Families, which is operating in association with LAFRA, the Los Angeles County Firefighter’s Benefit & Welfare Association (LACFBW) and the First Responders Honor Foundation, is to start with local firefighter families and then help those affected by future disasters around the globe. The plan is to build an online platform, similar to a gift registry, that will collect funds, organize brand partners and provide families with relief in the form of requested items delivered at appropriate times.
“Our understanding of what the problem was kept evolving as we were trying to solve the problem that we saw,” Strauss says.
That’s what happens during disasters. You scramble and adjust and realize you can’t do things alone. In the last month, I’ve noticed repeatedly that Pobereskin wants restaurants to get the credit they deserve for their relief work.
“I’ve done my best work when I escorted the restaurants who contributed to the fire department so they could receive the gratitude,” he says. “If I’m described in any way as more than a conduit for the generosity of other people, then that will be improper.”
Life recently has been a blur for Poberskin, who has added 250 contacts to his phone in the last month. But he’s also found clarity.
“You don’t understand the strength of your friendships and your community in good times,” he says. “You understand them only when things go tremendously wrong. And I feel extremely lucky that the friends I’ve identified as people I want to be a part of my community are the same people who, in the face of disaster, stuck around and became stronger together.”
