Restaurateur

Kenny Frasch

Kenny Frasch, owner with his family of The Hop Knot in Manchester, has made his restaurant a space for social justice organizing. (Courtesy photo)

When 27-year-old Kenny Frasch was growing up in Hooksett, he could count on two hands the number of other students who were not white. For years, Frasch dreamed of getting out of New Hampshire to live in a big city, where he could find more people who looked like him.

Instead, Frasch started working to change it from within. After spending years in the restaurant industry, he now runs The Hop Knot, a Manchester beer and pretzel bar, with his family. Together, they have transformed the restaurant into an inclusive and visible platform for social justice causes to gather and organize. They’ve hosted Juneteenth and Black Lives Matter events and organized a winter supply drive for neighbors in need, all while keeping the restaurant afloat during a global pandemic.

Q. You opened The Hop Knot in 2019. What was it like to face the challenges of the pandemic?

A. It was definitely not ideal. But I’ve been in the industry long enough, I’ve worked from bottom to top, and this is just the kind of stuff that happens. The restaurant industry is always just ready for whatever happens next, so it’s just about gritting your teeth and going with it.

On top of that, everything that was going on socially in the country was really tumultuous. For me, it goes back to Trayvon Martin (the unarmed 17-year-old killed in 2012). When I looked at him, I saw myself. I thought, “This could really happen to anybody.”

I’ve always been a social media warrior about these things. Now that we have the restaurant, I try to be very conscious to not make it come off as a marketing thing, because it’s not. This isn’t a political thing — this is us. We’re a Black-owned business. These are issues we have to deal with every day. It’s come to a point where we have to just be transparent about these things, and not worry if we’re going to lose customers. If we lose customers because we’re saying that, that’s probably not the people that we want dining at the bar.

Q. How have you seen the environment for racial justice in New Hampshire change over the years?

A. I think in general, Manchester has become a little melting pot. New Hampshire is diversifying a lot. There are a lot of people coming in — that’s what I love to see. I like walking around and seeing people who look different, or going to the Asian market, or going to the Manchester Market Basket and seeing the different ethnic food sections — it makes me happy.

People in my age demographic are starting to become the grown-ups. I think a lot of us are not going to stay silent. People are ready to raise hell when they need to.

Q. It must be tough to weather the ups and downs of the pandemic as a small business.

A. Since we’re such a small restaurant and we’re family-run, we can take these hits a lot easier than larger establishments can. It’s not a big restaurant, and we don’t have insanely high rent.

When business slowed down during the winter, it gave us time to focus on smaller things. We started a winter supply drive and collected gently used winter supplies and donated them to the NH Mutual Aid Relief Fund. They hand out supplies to people in the community who need them on Sundays in Veterans Park. When you put good things out there, they come back to you. People bring in donations and then they buy food, too, so it’s kind of a give-and-take.

Q. What are some ways you hope the Hop Knot will inspire the next generation of young people in New Hampshire?

A. I hope the next generation sees what we’re able to do, and sees that there are more places like this. People are becoming a lot more accepting, and hopefully kids who are in middle school right now will see these things happening. I hope people come back to the community and stay, because it’s becoming a really cool place. It’s a fun spot to be. I hope people want to be a part of it and see what they can contribute to it.

This article is part of a multiyear project exploring race and equity in New Hampshire produced by the partners of the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.