Get to Know Chef JJ Johnson 

Check out our interview with Chef JJ Johnson and learn more about the inspiration behind his fast-casual restaurant FIELDTRIP, its recipes, and plans for the future.

Q: FIELDTRIP’s mantra is “Rice is Culture” - can you explain the inspiration behind it and how your experiences have influenced the menu?

A: From my travels around the world, cooking and trying so many different types of food, I realized rice was at the center of so many dishes from different cultures.  Being in Singapore and West Africa, India, Israel – everywhere I went, rice was always at the center of the table, and people really get excited. The restaurant’s mantra, “Rice is culture,” speaks to this way of thinking as the menu offers many different styles of rice bowls inspired by global flavors while using a variety of rice as the base.  

Q: What are some of your favorite items on the menu? Anything that’s a staple to your cooking style or something you grew up eating?

A: Some of my favorite things on the menu are the seafood gumbo, salmon bowl and crab pockets, but there is really something for everyone with 7 different kinds of rice on the menu and lots of vegetarian options as well. 

My introduction to cooking was in the kitchen with my Puerto Rican grandmother as a young kid. At seven years old I would help her wash and stir rice standing on a step stool to reach the counter. Her kitchen smelled wonderful like cumin, coriander seeds and pink peppercorns. She was always cooking something delicious, and it made me fall in love with food as well.

Q: What are some of your short-term and long-term growth plans now that you're working with Founder's Table? Do you have any new goals with this opportunity?

A: I want to open more FIELDTRIP locations in the New York City area but also expand to other cities in the future. I want to take this brand on the road, partner with development companies that are looking for good partners, and keep paving the way for the future, bringing hope to the industry and just keep fighting during these hard times. 

Q: What inspired you to transition from Executive Chef at The Cecil, to starting from scratch as entrepreneur and founder of FIELDTRIP? What were some of the biggest lessons learned along the way?

A: I have always had the entrepreneurial spirit throughout my whole life. When you work for somebody so hard and have an entrepreneurial spirit, you start to realize maybe you can do something on your own. Working for someone like Richard Parsons only ignites your entrepreneurial spirit even more and makes you less afraid of failure. 

I love the fast-casual space, and it’s taught me a lot. Something I have learned through this process is to just focus on who you are right now as a restaurant. You can look to the bigger players to see what they're doing, but you don’t need to come out of the gate with all this branding, spending all this money that you won’t recoup in enough time with one location. You need to look at the cost of everything, not just the food, and that includes the vessel you're using to put the food in. It’s different than a full-service restaurant, where the plate was reusable. That bowl and utensil, every time it goes into the bag, that costs money. So that's something that I'm very conscious of now. You also need to think about creating something people can eat multiple times a week to keep the people in your community coming through the door.