From struggle to sobriety, this Charlotte chef has poured himself into giving back
As a third-generation restaurateur, Sam Diminich has hospitality in his blood.
He grew up in the kitchen alongside his father and grandfather, working in the family’s Italian restaurant in Myrtle Beach, and never gave much thought to doing anything else. He celebrates that rich history with his late father’s lasagna on every holiday pre-order menu at Your Farms Your Table, and it sells out each time.
“I’ve had a straight line — born in a restaurant, lived in a restaurant all my life,” the owner of Restaurant Constance told CharlotteFive. “To give is to receive, and there was never any phase of my life where I wondered what I would do next, and so it’s been very fulfilling.”
That straight line in his professional life has been matched with plenty of strife — including a yearslong battle with addiction that included time living on the streets in Charlotte. Yet, he eventually fought his way to a place where he’s not only sharing his culinary talents but also leading and supporting a team of 45 others, too.
Now, the 48-year-old chef who also owns and operates Your Farms Your Table restaurant group has been named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Southeast.
The prestigious distinction comes right as Restaurant Constance is celebrating its second anniversary, and Your Farms Your Table’s work is expanding to serve others in ways that feed his passions, as well as people in need.
Rising up
Diminich trained at The Culinary Institute of America, kicking off a career working in several restaurants in the northeast, as well as the Carolinas.
Amid one of his earlier attempts at recovery, his then-wife and the mother of his children to Charlotte moved to Charlotte to further her own career — and Diminich followed.
But sobriety didn’t stick right away. The bedrock of all that Diminich works for now was born out of struggle and pain. He spent years in and out of treatment centers, at one point living on the streets of West Charlotte until a violent attack hospitalized him and set him on a new path.
His journey was showcased in an episode of the culinary-focused local video series “Order/Fire.”
In the years since, he’s poured himself into work with Ben’s Friends, a “coalition of sober food and beverage people committed to their sobriety in an industry filled with drugs, alcohol, and stress.”
Diminich co-founded a Charlotte chapter of the group, named after Ben Murray, a restaurant worker in Charleston who took his life in 2016 in connection with his addiction.
Now, he serves as a board member and hosts meetings at 11 a.m. every Monday in the dining room at Restaurant Constance.
“In sobriety, we talk about getting out of self and into service, and whatever’s between the ears will be relieved. In a world that’s upside down sometimes, we’ve still got food — we can all agree on that, and I’m one of the lucky ones,” he said.
Your Farms Your Table
As his sobriety took priority, Diminich’s career was catching fire.
In January 2020, Diminich appeared on “Beat Bobby Flay” and won, besting the celebrity chef with the lobster risotto he’d perfected working as the executive chef at Upstream.
Just a few months after that national attention, though, Diminich was let go and Upstream closed during the early days of the covid pandemic, bringing him back to square one once more.
During that uncertain time, he was drawn back to the fields and farmers, with whom he’d had relationships with since he was a “a kid.”
Soon, he found a way to pull those worlds together even tighter and do what he does best, creating Your Farms Your Table. The farm-to-table meal delivery service has grown into the foundation of his company and held space for the roots of Restaurant Constance, as well.
“The pandemic offered us an opportunity to really see things differently and incorporate a focused value system — I just saw food differently,” Diminich said.
Instead of shaping a meal around protein, he began to instead center it on whatever was at the farm or whatever he was picking up at the farmers market, describing it as “a certain sense of harmony … of empowerment to be in the lockstep partnership.”
It wasn’t long before his work was once again getting high-profile attention, and he added on the title of personal chef for then-Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey to his plate.
Diminich also joined in among a coalition of Charlotte chefs banding together to increase pay for restaurant industry workers to help support young talent and offer a living wage, kicking off a focus on supporting others.
The years he spent fighting for sobriety led to the creation of Your Farms Your Table’s Community Supported Meal Program in 2022. Since then, Diminich and his team have prepared more than 36,000 meals at Charlotte facilities providing in-patient recovery and psychiatric services — including the center where he achieved his own sobriety.
Restaurant Constance
Now, Diminich has been named a semifinalist for the James Beard Award’s Best Chef: Southeast honor for his work at Restaurant Constance, a 10-table restaurant in Wesley Heights.
The menu ebbs and flows with the seasons and the offerings from local farmers, whom Diminich calls the “true heroes” of the food system. He estimates there have been 80 menu changes in the two years Restaurant Constance has been open, although he sticks to a base of simpler food at home, including lots of avocados and the “good bread” his fiancee keeps on hand.
A few staples have taken hold at the restaurant, such as the decadent jalapeno cornbread waffles and the RC Kale salad. But the mushroom bourguignon you loved in November won’t be there when you head back in February.
Instead, you’ll find that Lion’s Mane mushroom vindaloo has taken its place — and you can watch the staff perfectly plating it through the floor-to-ceiling window between the kitchen and dining room.
Salads are a standout spot at Restaurant Constance, too, with layers of flavor popping out from seasonal combinations like the Chopped Local Bibb & Radicchio salad, which blends Pink Lady apples, goat cheese, grapes, spiced cashews, crispy burdock, crunchy chickpea noodles and spiced kuri squash with a lemon-cardamom vinaigrette.
His favorite menu item? “That’s a tough one,” he said, adding: “Whatever the next thing that I make is.”
Restaurant Constance has also been among the forefront of the non-alcoholic beverage movement in Charlotte, a purposeful effort that stems from Diminich’s personal story.
Whereas many local restaurant offer two or three mocktail options, Restaurant Constance offers a full lineup of seasonal NA cocktails with inventive flavors. The Moonlit Mile currently on the menu blends yuzu, blackberry and lemongrass, while the West L.A. Fadeway includes tamarind tea and fresh tamarind, cardamom, bitter lekker and sparkling water.
Throughout the dinner service, Diminich pops in and out of the kitchen, pausing along the wall near the entrance as James Taylor’s “Sweet Caroline” or Offspring’s “Gone Away” plays on the speakers. He stands, arms folded, surveying the dining room as a diverse crowd filling every seat dines on plates of tuna crudo and veal shank.
Even as the last few diners leave (just after 10:30 p.m.), he’s connecting with customers as they make their way to the door, chatting about the framed albums hanging on the wall and about making sure their experience was a good one.
Looking ahead
Along with culinary trips to Cuba and a Farmer Dinner Series created to connect diners to the farmers who grow our food, Diminich has been giving back in other ways.
He recently returned to his hometown of Myrtle Beach for a pair of fundraising pop-ups to benefit NardMoor, a facility for homeless veterans.
Diminich also traveled to Western North Carolina to feed “anybody and everyone who need to be nourished” after being displaced by Hurricane Helene.
“A big part of me feels like that’s why I’m still here — to Iive one day at a time.”
And his work building community wherever he can is still expanding.
Diminich and Your Farms Your Table is expanding its community meal efforts to provide seasonal, chef-driven meals at HopeWay, a nonprofit mental health treatment facility in Charlotte.
His Your Farms Your Table team will manage HopeWay’s 9,000-square-foot kitchen, providing more than 100 meals and snacks for the center’s 20-acre campus, using local ingredients from farm partners along with fresh herbs grown on site. Those in the program will also spend time in the kitchen as part of HopeWay’s integrative therapy, building skills and confidence through meal preparation and meeting with dietitians in conjunction with group therapy.
“I do know this: That everything that’s happened with in the four walls of this company has happened organically, and that’s something to hold on to and compels me to dig a little deeper,” he said. “This restaurant where we’re sitting here now is a hub for togetherness.”
[WINNERS: Every Charlotte area chef, restaurant ever nominated for a James Beard Award.]
Restaurant Constance
Location: 2200 Thrift Road, Charlotte, NC 28208
Cuisine: Modern American
Instagram: @restaurant_constance
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