SOUTH BEND — Award-winning chef Rick Bayless will visit the University of Notre Dame on Thursday, April 28, for a cooking demonstration to students and later discuss the future of the restaurant industry.

Bayless — who is known for championing independent restaurants, winning Bravo’s Top Chef Masters and establishing his award-winning restaurants Frontera Grill and Toplobampo in Chicago — will speak as part of the university's "Visiting Chef" series.

At 12:30 p.m., students and campus community members can visit Bayless at the North Dining hall, where there will be a book giveaway and cooking demonstration. The event is not open to the public.

At 2 p.m., Bayless will then discuss "Wellness & Sustainability: The Future of the Restaurant Industry'' at Carey Auditorium in the Hesburgh Library. This event will be open to the public.

► Also speaking at ND: Condoleezza Rice to speak on Ukraine, college athletics at Notre Dame Thursday

In an interview with The Tribune, Bayless spoke about the impact the coronavirus pandemic continues to have on independently-run restaurants, an industry he says contributes "massively to the fabric of our community."

"I know that the population in general wants to think that we're in post-pandemic now, but I will tell you, those of us that are still trying to slug through this, we're not out of the woods," he said. "By any means."

Bayless points to economic impacts such as inflation costs and staffing that affects restaurants daily and says he anticipates more fallout in the next six to eight months as many restaurants assumed debt during the pandemic and cannot simply pay it back.

"We used to have basic formulas we kind of carried in our head for how to price things and what the labor to cost of goods was. … (But now) we're all trying to figure out a new balance," he said. "And we had something that we kind of worked with for a long time, but now, we've got to figure it out, and it's like building the plane as we're flying it. And we don't know where we're going to end up."

Bayless said he is currently working with the Independent Restaurant Coalition in appealing to Congress to refill the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which provides emergency funding to businesses impacted by COVID, in ensuring independently-owned restaurants and bars, especially those that are minority-owned, can survive.

"(It) will be a salvation for so many restaurants and it will mean that they will stay in business," he said. "As we talked about, I am huge champion of independent restaurants because I think that they really positively add to the fabric of neighborhoods, and I want to see those places survive. And getting money to this new form of the restaurant relief program will really ensure that."

More information about Bayless' visit can be found at uee.nd.edu/home/chefbayless.

Contact Mary Shown at 574-235-6244 and mshown@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @maryshownSBT and @marketbasketSBT.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Chef Rick Bayless to speak at Notre Dame on restaurant industry's future