To honor 9/11 this year, I promised to do a small, but good deed: I've pledged to sort cans at a local food bank.

The concept behind a new restaurant called Colors so intrigued me that I had to be there when it opened in downtown Manhattan last night. Colors, founded by the survivors of the World Trade Center's legendary Windows on the World, is a cooperative where everyone from the chef to the dishwashers has a stake in the business. The workers earn a minimum hourly wage of $13.50 and will share in the profits.

The restaurant's name is a nod to its multiethnic staff and the global cuisine inspired by their respective homelands: Haiti, Jamaica, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Egypt, Bangladesh, China and even the U.S. The menu “changes seasonally using ingredients purchased, where possible, directly from the producers who practice sustainable, organic agriculture.”