Throughout the month of February, Saturday Dinette chef Suzanne Barr is posting images of famous and forgotten figures throughout black history on the restaurant’s Instagram account (@SaturdayDinette) in hopes of educating diners of the trailblazers that shaped history.

But Barr isn’t just focusing on the past; she created the Saturday Dinette program that trains aspiring female cooks to enter an industry dominated by men.

We spoke with Barr on being the only female black cook in the kitchen and what she’s doing to change that.

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Why are you posting about Black History Month on social media?

Black History Month comes every year and a lot of the time, we think of the icons such as Martin Luther King Jr. Being in the position I am — a leader, teacher, mother and woman of colour — it’s important for me to educate people on the past and not only pay homage to the icons, but so many others that we don’t know about. Who were Edna Lewis (chef and cookbook author on southern cuisine) and Bessie Stringfield (the first Jamaican-American woman to motorcycle across the U.S.)? This is my contribution to black history.

Throughout your cooking career, how diverse were the kitchens you worked at?

I met some chefs in Paris when I was working as a private chef and it was predominately white men, but you’d find Africans in the back working the dish pit or as prep cooks. You might see some working the line and you might find a few women in pastry.

Is that why you started The Dinettes program?

When I opened the restaurant, I wanted to hire women in the kitchen, train them to get their skills strong so that they can leave me and work in any kitchen in any city. It’s a passion project and I’m thrilled that word is getting out there to bring in these young ladies from different backgrounds, whether it’s young women coming in from another industry, or someone with no experience at all but will give them the skill to travel the world.

I paired myself with organizations such as the Massey Centre, which focuses on teaching young single moms, and restaurants like Hawthorne Food and Drink. These ladies go through our programs, which start with basic things like knife skills, how to buy a knife and where to find kitchen-appropriate shoes. We do seminars in addition to hands-on experience. It’s not just about cutting onions and carrots in the kitchen.

It must be an encouraging sight for aspiring female chefs to see you, another woman, running this.

Seeing other women in the kitchen is such an uplifting joy. I know the experience of being the only woman there. Whether it’s hearing the locker room talk or you’re just having a day, you want to be able to look at someone and say, “Do you feel me?” You want to look at someone and have them understand you. It’s one thing to be the only woman, but to be a black woman and not see another black person.

What do you think needs to happen to make a kitchen a better working environment for everyone?

Being sensitive to your teammates and coworkers. Being aware and conscious that if someone next to you is the only person of that race or sex amongst everyone else, you have to realize they must be internalizing something if something inappropriate is said or done.

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It’s the social internalizing of racism and sexism that we forget about. We overlook it by saying we’re all the same by working these long hours together, but the truth is that person’s story is quite different from yours. Not to say we need to have Kumbaya sessions, but it’s as easy as just checking in with someone to see if they’re OK. If someone is in a position of hiring, hire people of different ethnic backgrounds in all positions, not just the same Sri Lankan dishwashers or Chinese prep cooks or female pastry chefs, diversify your team.

Interview edited for length and clarity.