BBB Serving Greater Cleveland: 2022 Celebration of Integrity

Brandon E. Chrostowski, Founder, President & CEO 

EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute

How does a wayward teen from Detroit evolve enough to turn a near certain jail sentence into a world-renowned culinary institute and 5-star French Restaurant? Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose!

Brandon Edwin Chrostowski is on a mission to change the face of re-entry in the United States. In 2007, he founded EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, a free 6-month culinary arts program in Cleveland, Ohio that caters to men and women recently released from prison. In 2013, EDWINS Restaurant, featuring classic French cuisine and 50 formerly incarcerated students, opened to rave reviews and has been changing lives ever since.

Hailed as a national model for re-entry, the institute, under Brandon’s zealous guidance and advocacy, has gone on to graduate over 250 students, placing them in jobs all over Northeast Ohio. In the process, Brandon Chrostowski has earned dozens of awards, including CNN Heroes, Crain’s 40 under 40, and The Richard C. Cornuelle Award from the Manhattan Institute for Social Entrepreneurship, and became the subject of the Academy Award-nominated documentary film, “Knife Skills”.

His lectures have inspired, awakened, motivated, and thrilled university and corporate audiences alike, while garnering more than a few emotionally rousing standing ovations. Presently, Brandon Chrostowski continues to work tirelessly towards the mission of providing everyone, regardless of their past, a fair and equal future. In addition to student housing and the life skills campus that have become safe havens for program enrollees and alumni, Brandon has opened EDWINS Butcher Shop and Training Center, with a brand new bakery. Brandon has invested his money, heart, time, and soul into erasing the stigma attached to returning citizens.

His reward? Watched his students become future leaders in the hospitality industry.