Philly’s hottest chefs take over the kitchen at Broad Street Ministry to serve the unhoused community

Chef Jezabel Careaga’s menu on this day included chicken and lentil empanadas, garlic rice, salad, and a cake topped with chocolate frosting and dulce de leche, a treat from her native northwest Argentina.

Her guests: About 400 people who step through the doors of Broad Street Ministry, a social-services organization in Center City supporting individuals experiencing homelessness and deep poverty. Broad Street Ministry, which last year doubled down on its social mission, fills its dining hall — the former sanctuary of a century-old church at 315 S. Broad St. — five days a week for a hot lunch.

One day a month, as part of the Kitchen Takeover series, a Philadelphia-area chef volunteers in Broad Street’s kitchen, working with the ministry’s culinary director, chef Kijuan Bolger, a veteran of such restaurants as Morton’s steak house, North Italia, and Legal Sea Foods.

“We’ve always had strong relationships and ties to the food and beverage world and the hospitality world,” said Larry Downey, 40, the ministry’s corporate relations manager. In 2017, chefs Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook even set up Rooster Soup, a nearby restaurant that, before its closing in 2019, donated 100% of its profits to Broad Street Ministry’s Hospitality Collaborative.

Downey is not shy about asking chefs to come out to inspire Bolger’s five-person kitchen team and to contribute to Broad Street’s mission. “Long story short: Philly is a small town and he reached out to me and he said, ‘I want you to come and see what we do here,’” Careaga said.

Chef Nicholas Elmi (Laurel, Lark, the Landing Kitchen) is a regular, and will be joined by Laurel executive chef Kevin McWilliams for the November takeover. The recent roster includes Ja’mir Wimberly-Cole (Restaurant Aleksandar), Melissa McGrath (Sweet Amalia’s Market), Matt Budenstein (Liberty Kitchen), Joncarl Lachman (Winkel), and Eric Leveillee (Lacroix).

Wimberly-Cole, Elmi, and Careaga have signed on as chefs for the ministry’s annual Be Our Guest Gala, to be held on-site on Oct. 26.

Elmi, introduced to the program by Chris Miller of La Colombe, said Broad Street Ministry makes the work easy for the volunteer chefs. “The [staff] chefs are professionals, so they source and purchase everything,” he said. “I just need to cook.” His wife and children also get involved, he said, “which is nice family bonding time.”

For Bolger, 37, who joined the agency earlier this year, it’s rewarding to offer a quality restaurant experience to Broad Street. “I’m able to bring that to our guests who aren’t always able to receive those kind of quality meals,” he said.

Bolger said he experienced homelessness himself as a teen and looks at it as giving back. He said he didn’t even think of it as a job, per se. “Once you get a job you like, you don’t feel like you’re working, and that’s how I feel now,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’m going to work. I feel like I’m going to help people.”

Helping matters greatly is that the nonprofit Carversville Farm Foundation, which operates an organic farm in Upper Bucks County, donates meats and produce to the ministry as part of a long-standing partnership. “Almost everything is organic,” Bolger said. “I just love the fact that we’re able to do that for people. For some of our guests, this lunch could be their only meal of the day.”

On other days, Bolger and his team mix up the selections, turning out such dishes as brisket, turkey wings, grass-fed beef burgers, and chicken Marsala.

The food touches people, Bolger said. Take the meat loaf he served one day over the summer. “One of our guests was like, ‘Oh my God. This meat loaf was so good. When I was growing up, my grandma used to make us meatballs, rice, and gravy.’ So I told him, ‘Listen, man, you come here one day next week.’ I didn’t give him a specific day, but I said I’d make sure we’ll have meatballs, rice, and gravy.

“He came there a whole week and we made it on a Friday. He was like, ‘Oh, my God, man. You really listened to me. You really cared.’ And he was like, ‘This is way better than my grandma’s.’”

Bolger said he was impressed with Careaga. “She brought her team in, bright and early in the morning, and she said, ‘We’ve got to roll, we’ve got to keep it moving.’ She kept her foot on the pedal — and I learned to make something new.”

Careaga and her team had prepped 800 empanada shells the day before in her West Philadelphia restaurant. She and Bolger had settled on the menu months before. “It’s a very simple but delicious meal that my grandma always used to put in front of me when I was a kid,” said Careaga, 41.

For guest Troy Godwin, empanadas were something new, though the ministry’s fellowship was much more familiar.

“Lunch is something that I can count on when I’m here,” said Godwin, 61, who said he had been living on the streets for the last three or four years before moving into an apartment in Germantown recently. He said he has formed relationships with some staff members. “When I talk to them, they listen, and if I need to vent or if I have a problem with somebody they will listen without interrupting,” he said.

He also credited the ministry with a newfound purpose. Last year, Downey heard that Godwin played the piano and hired him to perform at its fundraiser.

“That night, I went to sleep at the Eighth and Market El station, which is ironic because I was rubbing elbows with all these big people, but then I ended up sleeping in the train station,” Godwin said. “That was a turning point for me. Nowhere was cleaning up my life a part of my game plan, but a week after the fundraiser, I checked myself into rehab.”