#ChefsForAmerica: Stories from WCK Restaurant Partners
As the United States comes up on the one-year mark since the start of the pandemic, WCK’s response across the country continues. Since we started activating restaurants last spring to help provide nourishing meals to communities impacted by COVID, we have disbursed more than $150 million dollars into local economies through over 2,400 restaurants. Today we are sharing a few stories from some of the incredible Black-owned restaurants that have been working with us for months, preparing comforting and delicious meals for neighbors in need.
When WCK reached out to Trevel, the owner of OVO Tavern – Oakland’s Very Own Tavern & Eatery, to be exact – last summer, the restaurant was closed due to the pandemic. After our Oakland-based team talked him through our Restaurants for the People program, Travel was immediately on board and joined us. Since June, the restaurant has now cooked more than 40,000 nourishing meals with WCK for members of the community impacted by the pandemic.
Trevel opened OVO Tavern in 2015, followed by a second restaurant in early 2020—just before Covid hit and local shutdowns began. Using both spaces to prepare WCK meals for neighbors in need, Trevel was able to keep his staff safe while working. Over the past 6 month, OVO Tavern has been a trusted WCK partner, always able to jump in on last minute meal needs – and to be there for families in Oakland.
On the East Coast in Newark, New Jersey, WCK is partnering with Blueprint Cafe. Carole owns the restaurant and Charles manages it, serving a variety of food including quinoa bowls with grilled vegetables and herb sauce and flavorful croque monsieurs. Blueprint was originally a construction firm, so the team repurposed materials they had leftover to build the restaurant. The walls inside the cafe are lined with blueprints from projects the firm worked on over the years in and around the city of Newark.
There have been people struggling to make ends meet, so to know that people are receiving—on a weekly basis—free meals, this is really huge. Just by seeing peoples’ faces you can see what the program is doing for their lives. Being involved in a project like this is very inspiring and makes you want to do more to help the community and the city of Newark at large.
Charles
Blueprint Cafe Manager
The women of Shugga Hi Bakery & Cafe have been cooking with WCK since September, serving meals to the local community from The Nashville Free Store located inside Drkmttr, a music venue that’s been shuttered due to COVID. Kathy and her sister Sandra quit their jobs as an attorney and a banker, respectively, to open the bakery and cafe in an underserved part of East Nashville.
The sisters are now serving meals made up of chicken salad sandwiches on croissants with a bed of greens, pesto tortellini pasta salad, and seasonal fresh fruit; beef mushroom bourguignon with sautéed kale; and smokey chicken flatbreads with bacon, avocado, and sun-dried tomato mayo through the pandemic. Shugga Hi is serving students and families of Metro Nashville Public School, as well as people transitioning out of homelessness.
Myreille Joseph owns Le Jardin, a famous 30-year-old Haitian restaurant in Miami. Originally from Haiti, Myreille spent most of her career working throughout the United States for Bank of America. She was always behind the scenes and working in offices, but as a self-proclaimed lover of community and people, Myreille made the leap into the restaurant business 15 years ago when Le Jardin’s location went up for sale. Now, just like the restaurant itself, Myreille’s smile is a staple in the local Haitian community.
Myreille and Le Jardin’s team has been preparing meals for the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center, like the traditional dish of Griot with pikliz, Haitian rice, plantains, and salad.
WCK continues to work with our partner restaurants to prepare meals for neighbors most impacted by the pandemic. To date, we have served more than 35 million fresh meals to families across the United States, Spain, and Indonesia.
