Mise en Place is the result of artist Sophia del Rio's experience working as a waitress during and after the 2020 pandemic. She was compelled to document the experience and that of her co-workers. 'Mise en Place' is a fine-dining term, translates to "everything in its place," and in the context of this exhibition, speaks to the hard-lined destiny of restaurant industry workers' limited options.

This artistic body of work started outside the galleries as a social work called "100 Plates." The immersive art event took the form of a dinner party, and hosted a group of 12 restaurant workers from different Fort Worth restaurants to discuss wage and labor issues. The work has since expanded to include a series of paintings of beautiful restaurant dining rooms that reveal how difficult these elegant places are to scrutinize. The drab-colored Commemorative Plates series provide contrasting scenes of the hard-working kitchen staff, waitresses and bartenders of the modern restaurant.

The service workers in Tulsa, OK face many of the same injustices as those highlighted by the North Texas stories in the exhibition. Tulsa restaurants use the same tipping-based wage system, and undocumented and marginalized workers—many from North Tulsa, still rebuilding after historic disinvestment—struggle under low pay, unstable hours, and lack of safety nets. The exhibition humanizes the workers in our local communities and restaurants, recognizes shared patterns of systemic neglect and labor practices, while encouraging discussion of fairer conditions.