Welcome to the second edition of In the Weeds, a publication highlighting stories from the independent restaurant industry. This is the second half of a series on chefs who have brought their big-city fine-dining experience back home, proving that fine-dining diners can be found almost anywhere.
(Read Jon Nodler and Samantha Kincaid’s story here.)
Joseph VanWagner (center) at Echelon Kitchen & Bar
Late last month, I sat down for a video chat with Joseph VanWagner, who spoke with me from the bright and airy dining room of Echelon Kitchen & Bar, his Ann Arbor restaurant. Joe’s restaurant was recently named a 2026 James Beard Foundation Best New Restaurant semifinalist, and he was clearly proud of his team and thrilled with their success. But Echelon’s dining room wasn’t where he expected to end up, he said.
Joe grew up in Michigan. And, like many chefs, he left home soon after he decided to pursue a career in restaurants. It was just expected, he said.
Ann Arbor, where Joe had his first restaurant job, has “traditionally been dominated by college-town food because it is a university town, and let’s just say more technique- and ingredient-driven restaurants have been few and far between,” he said.
“Everybody from my generation, as soon as they figured out [the restaurant industry] was the path, it was, ‘Where are you going?’” Joe went to Chicago, Paris, and most recently worked at Daniel in New York City. But something was missing from his impressive career: a sober support system.
“I really struggled with addiction,” he said. “So, after COVID, I was at this place where I was like, I don’t know if I can hack it anymore.”
Not that there isn’t a sobriety support system in New York, he said. It just wasn’t where his was.
In Ann Arbor, “I had a whole group of people in sobriety, people adjacent to sobriety who knew my story, knew about me, and were here to support a sober lifestyle,” he said. “So that was the driving factor, quite frankly, to go home. It was not professional.”
Still, leaving the city was a difficult decision for Joe. “You’re going from New York, which one could say is the culinary hub of America, to small-town Midwest Ann Arbor,” he said.
A soft shell crab dish at Echelon
When he arrived back in Ann Arbor, he worked at and later ran the kitchen at The Dixboro Project, a popular, multi-concept restaurant and event space that helped Joe understand how the area’s diners had evolved.
“There was clearly, I hate to use the word ‘market,’ but there was clearly a market,” Joe said.
Ann Arbor residents seemed ready for intentional, ingredient-driven meals and elevated wines that Dixboro was serving. “But the other thing that was so striking to me, and this is something I always knew, and I always thought about, was the quality of food that’s produced in this area and in Michigan.”
Echelon, which he opened with a few partners in February 2025, caters to this fine-dining market and emphasizes the wealth of food coming out of Michigan’s farms. The restaurant offers seasonal à la carte and tasting menus, which highlight the space’s wood-fired oven. Joe has been particularly surprised by the interest in the tasting menu. At 135 seats, and an additional 50 or so when they open outdoors, the restaurant is bigger than any Joe imagined opening, he said. Despite the size, the seats are full.
Echelon is serving to “really experienced diners [who] spend their time and their hard-earned money going to other places just for food experiences, other cities. Vacations are based around food. That has been the biggest epiphany for me,” Joe said. “Every single night, I think I can say this, we hear something to the effect of: ‘We take a trip every year to go eat at a Michelin star restaurant … but now we don’t have to travel to do it.’ And, as a chef, that’s it. That is the most gratifying, uplifting thing you can hear.”
Also gratifying? Creating a safe space for sobriety. Echelon hosts recovery meetings weekly for people in the industry and beyond. “And, selfishly, it’s been pretty awesome that I can just walk into a section of the restaurant I’m working at and escape for an hour to be with my people and have a little escape from the day-to-day and reconnect.”
Thank you, Joe, for sharing your story.
Side Dishes:
Restaurants speaking out about ICE are experiencing backlash.
A former real estate mogul is buying up historic restaurants in Newport, Rhode Island. But it’s not just for the real estate; he’s keeping the restaurants going. “We want the business, because the business is ultimately more profitable than the real estate.”
On chef Alex Stupak’s Substack, he digs into how diners evaluate prices for Mexican fare and using tacos as a Trojan horse.
This niche company curates music and develops sound systems and acoustic treatments that allow restaurants to turn up the music without interrupting diners’ conversations. But I’m most intrigued by the growth they are seeing in reel-to-reel-players. More proof that there’s opportunity in analog.
Speaking of analog…
We are a large believer in our industry being one of the few to not only last but grow during these next few decades with the rise of AI and the rise of technology and everybody being able to get everything at their fingertips at home or where they are. I don’t ever see [technology] physically recreating eating, drinking, and interacting.
— John Terzian, cofounder of LA-based h.wood Group
(Delilah, Harriet’s, The Nice Guy, etc.)
Out and About:
My recent lunch at Joya’s, Columbus Chef Avishar Barua’s fast casual spot, was a category-defying experience. I paid upfront at the counter, but I experienced so many little hospitality moments while enjoying my Crispy Manchurian Sandwich that I had this funny feeling when I left, like I was supposed to ask for the bill.
(I also enjoyed reading Molly Irani’s new book Service Ready during lunch.)
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-gloria