Once upon a time, Ellen Yin worked in health care administration. Lucky for Philadelphia, she switched careers, opening Fork in 1997, and has since been ruling Old City.

When did your interest in food start?

It started when I was fourteen. I wanted to get a job and the only job I could get was either working at a restaurant or for a newspaper delivery company, so I got a job at a local restaurant in my hometown of Rumson, NJ. It was a very small Chinese restaurant. But I then decided I wanted to do more in the front of the house. There was a restaurant around the corner from me called the Fromagerie, which is under ownership by David Burke, so when I was sixteen I became a bus girl there and they pretty much trained me to do every job in the place – I learned how to bartend, I served, I organized their wine cellar… I eventually didn’t go home anymore (laughs) so that’s really where it all started.

I think what made the difference for me was that I had stayed home one year from college at Penn because I thought I might want to go to hospitality school. I skipped a semester and decided I was going to apply to the Cornell Hotel School and then realizing how cold and far away it was (laughs), I decided I would stay at Penn, so I went back to finish my junior year. When I got back I went to the only French restaurant on Penn’s campus - it’s called restaurant La Terrasse - and I worked there for about three or four years.

I eventually went back to school at Penn and got my MBA in healthcare administration and after graduating, I felt that since I didn’t go the traditional route in undergrad, maybe I should do that (the traditional route). I got a job at PricewaterhouseCoopers and stayed there for about eight months. I then I ended up working as an independent consultant, and then eventually took a job with Jefferson in hospital administration.

How did the desire to actually leave your previous job come about?

In the back of my mind I always thought of owning a restaurant, and having done a business plan for one as an undergraduate, I was always coming back to it. But I knew that it required a great amount of capital and I knew my parents weren’t going to aid in that, so it would have to be my own money.

So finally, after I had worked like a dog for three or four years, I had savings. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my job, I just constantly never felt satisfied. I was reading more and more food magazines (and also noticed that) everyone who was opening a restaurant was around my age, in their early 30’s, so I kind of thought it was now or never. I left Jefferson in November of ’95 and we opened in ’97.

You know your partner, Roberto Sella, from grad school at Penn. How did you become partners?

During school, we didn’t know each other that well. Eventually I discovered that Roberto was really interested in wine and dinner parties so we became friends. He always said, “If you open a restaurant I would love to have a great restaurant to bring my own wines to, so I would be interested.” So that was kind of how we became friends and have been ever since.

What were your reasons for choosing Fork’s neighborhood bistro concept?

I like to eat out, so when I was coming up with concept I thought, “well what are the types of places I like to go to?” I was thinking somewhere upscale but not somewhere you would have to get dressed up to go to. I wanted everyday food and I wanted people to come and know the menu by heart.

When I started looking for a chef, I was really lucky I met my first chef, Anne-Marie Lasher, from a mutual friend who worked at the White Dog and we put something together. We came up with that kind of farm, organic, local cuisine. She now owns Picnic.

Why Old City?

I always liked that downtown feel. I knew I wouldn’t able to afford Center City, so I was looking for something that could be neighborhoody and something that would have that industrial space feel.

Old City served as a walkway to the waterfront and Caribou Café and Continental had just opened along with a lot of places on Second Street, so there were a bunch of different things that kind of launched Old City forward. Before, it was kind of like you were on a desert island – if you came to Old City, you were kind of committed to eating here. But that was changing.

Are you surprised by Fork’s success?

Yes. You get to every milestone and you’re like, “oh my God we’re open!” And then you’re like, “oh my God we’re open and we didn’t break the bank yet!” And then you’re like “oh my God the first reviewer’s here.” You’re busy kind of responding to every “oh my God.” In December of that year, a writer from USA Today came and they highlighted four restaurants – Le Bec Fin, the Fountain, Monks and Fork. So that kind of launched us. Although by that time the weekends were already booked – you had to wait four weeks to get a reservation on a Saturday, so I was shocked. So shocked. Obviously we didn’t expect to have that kind of response, and it was probably why Anne-Marie and I split up; that wasn’t her vision of what she wanted, but my vision was to keep it going.

Since opening Fork you have opened Fork Etc. What prompted you to do so?

From the beginning, we were thinking of another project; it was just finding the right one. So when next door became available (it used to be a dollar store) I figured, “if I’m going to do something, maybe I should do something here”, and from a management perspective it wouldn’t be too bad. We decided we would do a(nother) storefront and expand our kitchen.

I’ve talked to enough people and you always think (that) your second project is going to be easy, but of course it isn’t. We ended up having to use union labor and finished over budget: when you’re budgeting $800,000 and you end up spending 1.2 million, it’s difficult.

Are there any trends right now that you love?

I love everyone focusing on local. When we first started using local (ingredients), you could really only get local produce. Now you can get vegetables, you can get pork, you can get duck, you can get chicken, you can get cheese – you can get everything. It’s really much more expansive.

Are there any trends you hate right now? Do you have any feelings towards BYOBs?

Well I have to say that I don’t hate BYOBs because of course I love to eat at them myself, but people have to realize there’s a reason why BYOBs are small, (and very different than restaurants with liquor licenses). There are many times when large parties come in and want to bring their own wine. If you go to a BYOB (with a large party) they have to completely close down. But a bigger restaurant like Fork can accommodate that, but we also have a price, which is that we want to sell our own wine because that helps us sustain the levels of food we’re putting out. At a BYOB they don’t have to pay a liquor tax. I’m also paying more liquor liability insurance, I’m paying for nice glassware, I’m paying a full service knowledgeable staff and to be honest, many of the customers that ask to do this bring in something like Yellowtail, which I can understand, but they have to understand that an operation like Fork is not cheap, our electric bill alone is close to $8,000 a month. So they’re paying for all that, not just the food. People don’t realize we’re still trying to offer value, but it’s very difficult to offer a quality product like that.

Tell us a bit about your book, Forklore.

It’s about the people I’ve met along the way, and the restaurants that I have eaten at that have given me inspiration. It’s all compiled into a story of how we evolved our self. Everybody’s situation is unique, but I don’t know that anybody would be able to replicate my situation. Coming up with ideas, you have to get inspiration from some place.

In terms of the writing itself, everything else is constantly interrupting, so concentrating on writing a book was definitely difficult (laughs).

Lastly, and most importantly, why the name Fork?

I was traveling in New York and I saw a restaurant named Match – the sign was just a matchstick – it was a really cool idea and so I thought, “Is there someway I can do something like it?” I though about a fork and thought, “Well, that’s cool.” I wasn’t sure if people were going to call it Fork.

People still sometimes call it The Fork and I’m like no it’s just Fork! (laughs)