Anthony Bourdain called America’s professional kitchens “the last refuge of the misfit,” in an essay published in The New Yorker in 1999.

They’re a place, he wrote, that embraces those who have turned their backs on the 9-to-5 grind and have given up on “ever having a Friday or Saturday night off” or a “normal relationship with a non-cook.”

On Monday night, many self-described “misfits” went to the movies.

In 25 cities across the country — including Austin, Philadelphia and Los Angeles — hundreds of restaurant workers gathered at cinemas for an early screening of “Tony,” a feature film directed by Matt Johnson that follows Bourdain during a summer in the 1970s he spent working as a dishwasher at Flagship, an oyster joint in Provincetown, Mass.

The events, organized by OpenTable, Square and the movie’s production company, A24, ahead of the film’s release on Friday, were a kind of salute to Bourdain’s world.

In New York, servers, hosts, bartenders, line cooks, dishwashers and, of course, chefs, from a range of the city’s dining staples, including the Odeon, Black Seed Bagels, Wegmans and L’Artusi, were invited to spend the night at the Regal Cinemas Times Square. They greeted one another with hugs and fist pumps as they picked up caps that read “support local restaurants” and reached for sodas served in giant plastic deli containers.