Nashville Chef Channels Community

Continued from Resetting the Table Series:                                                                                “Restaurants Helping Hospitality Workers and Their Communities

In Nashville, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee did indeed turn to restaurants for aid in their efforts to feed affected members of the community, many of which had been impacted by both the COVID-19 crisis and the devastating tornado that swept through the city in early March. In partnership with the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation, a program was established to fund hourly workers who would otherwise have been displaced from their restaurant jobs to help prepare meals which were then distributed to those in need by Second Harvest.

vided by the extra work on behalf of Second Harvest. “There’s a need for that,” notes Bolus. “There are more people in trouble, and they approached us about that. We had an open kitchen since we were working out of [404’s sister restaurant] Adele’s doing takeaway. It turned out to be a win/win/win situation for our community, our local farmers and our employees. It allows us to keep supporting our favorite vendors like Bill and LeeAnn Cherry at Bear Creek Farm and Farmer Dave. There’s no money involved for the restaurant in that, but we’re able to spend money with our core vendors and our own workers to prepare 400 meals a week.”

lows us to give people hours to come in on Monday to cook these meals, box them and distribute them. It’s keeping 2-3 people working extra hours a week instead of sending them home. That’s a feel good move, because with profit being such a bad word, overtime is an even worse word,” Bolus says with a chuckle.

What Bolus and his team have been able to create on a limited budget is astounding. He describes the menu on any given week: “We did roasted cornish hens with a gnudi and tomato sauce and basil. We’ve done sausage and rice with sofrito. We were working on bolognese for one of them because LeeAnn had a bunch of ground pork, and we were like ‘Yeah! Why not?’ I mean, it’s not 404 food, but it’s delicious, and it’s local, so it’s something we’re proud of!”

Bolus sees even more benefits from his involvement with Second Harvest. He describes, “One of the things I hope that people get out of this whole pandemic thing is the sense of community and family. We all got to spend a lot more time with our family, and that’s the only way we’re going to get through all this is by supporting each other. We had cooks sign up to do it, and we kind of had to draw straws. We didn’t have to force people to do it for sure. I’ve also seen team members helping each other, collecting money to buy food for somebody else on the staff who needed it. Nobody asked them to do it, but I want to hold on to those people forever!”

Bolus sums up his involvement this way: “We’re in the hospitality business, right? We’re in the business of feeding people, whether that be $1000 tasting menus or the local shelter that gives out meals, let’s do that. It’s the core of our business, plain and simple what we do. And it feels good just to be able to cook for people.”

Resetting the Table: Restaurants Helping Hospitality Workers and Their Communities

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