SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The Cohn Restaurant Group is launching an effort to help around 200 employees at their Maui restaurants, most of whom have lost their homes in the devastating wildfires.
“We haven’t been able to reach several of our employees. We even had some managers who slept in the restaurant because they were displaced from their homes," Cohn operations manager Jeffrey Pittrof told ABC 10News.
Cohn Restaurant Group owns several of San Diego's most well-known restaurants, in addition to the Castaway Cafe and the Plantation House on Maui.
As of Friday afternoon, he said they had made contact with all but around 10 employees. Pittrof says most of them lived in Lahaina and had their homes destroyed. Fellow employees are putting them up on spare beds and couches, while the restaurant is using generators to operate its kitchen to prepare food for the employees and their families.
Cohn has launched a fundraiser to help the employees. Owners David and Leslie Cohn are pledging to match the total, up to $100,000.
