A major December event, along with our ministerial outreach at Philadelphia's Annie's Home, was the blessing and opening of The Friars' Table at city of Cleveland's Playhouse Square. Our brothers serve the St. Paul's Shrine and at the parish of St. Malachy's in the city, but Cleveland's Ordinary, Bishop Edward Malesic, posted a special moment on his Instagram page:
Last evening, I was pleased to bless the newly opened The Friar’s Table restaurant at Playhouse Square. The eatery is a collaboration among Cleveland Capuchin Ministries, EDWIN’s Leadership & Restaurant Institute and Playhouse Square, offering training and job opportunities for many people who are trying to build a new life.
Among the guests for the event were our Provincial Minister, Robert Marva, OFM Cap., joining our brothers in Cleveland. The press for the new endeavor has been fast and frequent from various news outlets in the Cleveland area.
This November Article appeared in the Diocese of Cleveland's webpage on November 20th:
The Friars’ Table restaurant plans job fair,
prepares to begin service
For the official opening, on December 8th, Cleveland Magazine published the article The Friars’ Table Opens Its Doors in Playhouse Square District.
On December 12th, Cleveland's WKYC-TV featured an interview with Friars' Table collaborators Chef Brandon Chrostowksi and our brother Phil Bernier, OFM Cap.:
The Friars’ Table spotlights monastic cuisine
and community in Playhouse Square
That page contains both the video of the interview as well as an article, but two quotes struck us as helpful when describing the purpose and vision of our most recent ministerial outreach:
From Brandon Chrostowski of EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant (and whose NYTimes article is headlined "Where a restaurateur dishes out tough love to former inmates" !) . . .
“The idea is you go full time employment. You still are going through a curriculum of being taught the fundamentals of cooking and hospitality. So we have that large checklist in our curriculum,” Chrostowski said. “The biggest one is the stabilization of someone's life and making sure,’ hey, you've got steady employment, we can build on that and get into housing if you need it.’ And then from there, you know, next step and so on.”
And from our brother Phil:
Chefs among us may want to see a not-to-miss feature of Cleveland's WOIO-Channel 19 in its Cleveland Cooks series when they highlighted Brandon's work with The Friar’s Table on December 20th.
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And, finally, on January 3rd, Catholic Creatives posted about a collaboration with the Cleveland Playhouse as it hosts the touring company of Broadway's Life of Pi - plan a trip there for Friday, January 17th (!):
for the support of the community to happen!