Actor Bill Murray and celebrity chef Guy Fieri. (Photo: Shutterstock/Flickr)

Guy Fieri and Bill Murray's connection is a new one. The Food Network star and beloved comic actor had never worked together before joining up for this Friday's Nacho Average Showdown, a Facebook Live event to raise money for out-of-work restaurant employees.

The magnet pulling the two together was J. Riley Lagesen, the national restaurant industry practice group chair at Davis Wright Tremaine. Lagesen has represented Fieri for almost a decade, advising him on a growing portfolio of restaurants and licensing arrangements that emerged from his television work.

When restaurants across the country were forced to shutter in the middle of March, putting millions of employees out of work, the Portland-based partner called his client to propose a fundraising effort. The resulting Restaurant Employee Relief Fund has since raised over $20 million, with the administrative support of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, which has not charged any overhead.

"The tough news is that demand is so high, even if you raise a lot of money," Lagesen said.

A recent report from the Brookings Institution found that food preparation and service is the second most common occupation in the U.S., while waiting tables is ranked No. 8. Closures to limit the spread of the coronavirus have brought unprecedented financial pain to the 12 million Americans working at over 600,000 food service and drinking establishments nationwide.

Riley Lagensen, Davis Wright Tremaine. (Courtesy photo)

"It's hard to get people to donate. People are having a hard time themselves," he added.

To give the effort a boost, Lagesen proposed pulling in Murray and his restaurateur son Homer Murray. He was first introduced to Bill Murray through client and friend Kerry Simon, a Las Vegas celebrity chef who died in 2015.

Nachos sit at the heart of the Fieri culinary aesthetic, and they're also on the menu at 21 Greenpoint, Homer Murray's Brooklyn restaurant. "I got on the phone with Guy and Bill and Homer," Lagesen said. "They were all laughing about it, saying it sounds really funny."

Lagesen had more names in his smartphone's contacts. He pulled in Shaquille O'Neal, whom he'd advised on restaurant projects, and "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" star Terry Crews to judge the virtual competition, along with "Top Chef" veteran Carla Hall to serve as host.

With the exception of Fieri and son Hunter, who are cooking together, the participants will be all be broadcasting from home, using Facebook Live, ensuring that the contest will be judged on concept and presentation, rather than taste.

"At a minimum, it's going to be pretty funny," Lagesen said.

The attorney spent seven years in the restaurant industry himself after graduating from USC with a film degree, busing tables, pouring drinks, DJing, and more. After leaving the premier of a 1996 film he wrote to head back to his bar-tending gig, Lagesen realized it was time for a change, and launched his own fast-casual concept with several partners. When that grew to three locations in Los Angeles, but failed to yield enough revenue to support all the owners, he bowed out for law school, aiming to build a career representing restaurants.

Now, with the industry in crisis, he's got a full plate, handling the fundraising project on a pro bono basis, while representing clients facing dire circumstances and co-chairing a Los Angeles committee aimed at creating reopening guidelines for the city.

"Our goal is to have restaurants, at least during the recovery period, considered a protected group because of their job-producing abilities," he said. "We want to have some deregulation and some policies that will make it more economical to operate, and also provide restaurants with protections from law suits that have plagued the industry."

And more is at stake than just the survival of restaurants, outside of heavily franchised fast food establishments that are not feeling the same pain.

"The problem, as we see it, is improving health and wellness through the collective power of the restaurant industry," Lagesen said. "If there is decreased access to good food, which is currently the case during the pandemic, health problems will be exacerbated."