Ellen Yin

Restaurateur

Ellen Yin is the founder and co-owner of High Street Hospitality Group, which operates some of the country’s most celebrated dining establishments, including a.kitchen + bar, Fork, High Street Restaurant & Bakery, High Street Hoagies and The Wonton Project  in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and doyenne of the hospitality industry, Yin was honored with Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Women of Distinction” award in 2020. In 2023, she was awarded “Outstanding Restaurateur” by the James Beard Foundation.

Yin’s restaurant group has also amassed long-standing critical acclaim over the past two decades. Her flagship restaurant, Fork, was named one of the most influential restaurants of the past decade by the Inquirer and appeared in Esquire’s list of “Top 100 Restaurants America Can’t Afford to Lose” in 2020. That year, the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce honored the group with the “Inspiring Excellence Award” for serving front-line workers, hospitality workers and the food insecure during the COVID-19 pandemic and fundraising for restaurant industry mental health programs. Proudly dedicated to the flourishing of Philadelphia, Ellen is a co-chair of Sisterly Love Coalition and a board member of the Philadelphia Award, the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, and the Arden Theater Company. She is on the Community Advisory Board of the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Kimmel Cancer Center. Nationally, she sits on the board of OpenTable and is an active member of the Independent Restaurant Coalition.

Finding a Recipe for Belonging | Ellen Yin | TEDxPenn

How Ellen Yin Turned Her Love for the Restaurant Industry into a Culinary Empire