'Restaurant: Impossible' Host Robert Irvine Gives Back Through Foundation

Robert Irvine, best known as a chef and the host of the Food Network's hit show "Restaurant: Impossible," has a passion for helping others, particularly military and first responders.

Through the Robert Irvine Foundation, he's able to help thousands upon thousands of our service members, veterans, first responders and their families in a variety of ways.

With Veterans Day quickly approaching, the Foundation has various events planned that Irvine is spearheading and participating in. Irvine, also a veteran and recipient of this year's Veterans of Foreign Wars Distinguished Citizenship Award, finds his true joy in helping others.

Irvine keeps busy with cooking, hosting television shows, traveling and helping out with his foundation. He recently had time to chat with The Blast about his foundation and what upcoming projects he has in the works.

Irvine, while most widely known for hosting "Restaurant: Impossible," also owns one of the biggest privately owned protein snack companies, FitCrunch, has two restaurants, Irvine Spirits, Robert Irvine Foods, and is the author of "Overcoming Impossible."

While many people think Irvine's biggest passion is cooking and food, he said that taking care of the military and first responders is truly his first love.

"People say I have a passion for food. I really don’t," he told The Blast exclusively. "I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the food that gets me to the passion, which is people."

He began his foundation in 2014 after years of working with others and finding that they didn't really highlight exactly what he was trying to. Funds raised for the Foundation help veterans and first responders in many ways, including training service dogs, feeding the military, veterans and first responders, making mental health and wellness services available and providing mobility devises for the disabled.

"So the Robert Irvine Foundation was formed after many years of working with other foundations, which really didn’t highlight what I was trying to do, and that was simple - mental and physical health and the well-being of our first responders and the men and women who wear the cloth of our nation," he explained.

The foundation has been able to supply iBot wheelchairs and is gearing up to supply mechanized bikes for BMX riding for amputees.

"Last year, we gave 10 of those [iBot wheelchairs] away. We also have a new thing to get veterans and amputees out of their home. We're now doing mechanized bikes for BMX riding, because we have a couple hundred double amputees," he said. "And we've found that getting them out and getting them involved in the outside world in some way, shape, or form, puts them back into that unit mentality, helps with those negative thoughts and suicide."

In addition to helping out veterans and the men and women who serve our country, the foundation also helps firefighters and first responders with PTS dogs, because they also deal with similar post traumatic stress as the military does.

With Veterans Day coming up, the foundation has many different events planned. There are also other programs that are year-round, such as the foundation's "Breaking Bread with Heroes" event.

"We run a program, ‘Breaking Bread with Heroes,’ where twice a week somewhere around the world we’re feeding anywhere from 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 people on the base to make sure they know we love them and are taking care of them," Irvine told The Blast. 

On November 3, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Foundation annual dinner gala will take place in New Orleans. Irvine will be preparing dinner for the more than 600 attendees and said that this event is "very humbling" to have "so many heroes in one room."

On November 5, Irvine will be co-hosting the Philadelphia Veterans Day Parade on 6ABC and will engage with military and veterans who are a part of the parade afterwards.

On November 6, the Foundation will host the 6th annual "Beats n' Eats" in Philadelphia, an immersive food and music experience that features a seven-course meal prepared by celebrity chefs and paired with live musical performances.

During the event, Irvine will spend time with service members, veterans and their families, cook one of the dishes, and make on-stage introductions to the chefs and performers. Participating chefs joining Irvine for the event includes Amanda Freitag, Maneet Chauhan, Beau MacMillan, Chad Durkin, Ashley Holt, Lindsay Autry and Marc Murphy.

Irvine keeps a busy schedule running multiple companies, restaurants, working with the Foundation and traveling 345 days a year. His favorite part of it all - taking care of other people.

“At the end of the day when you go home, do you feel good about what you’ve done and how you’ve done it in that moment," he told The Blast. "And I feel like that every day of my life. I feel blessed to do it."

As for his hit show on the Food Network, "Restaurant: Impossible," he said the best part for him was seeing people succeed.

"The show was about originally fixing things and then it took on a life of its own, taking care of people and then fixing things. My favorite part of that was seeing successful people that were failing at the end of it. If I look at the show in the three years post covid, it was 96 percent successful," he said.

"Food Network finished it in November. It will come back somewhere, somehow, sometime. I don’t know how or when, but it will not be the same show but something similar."

Irvine is also working on some new upcoming projects, saying "we always have upcoming projects."

He revealed that he's working on a few TV shows on different networks, and there are always new products and new businesses in the works.

"There's always something going on," he said. "It's never boring."

For more information on The Robert Irvine Foundation, visit their website.