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Thursday, October 20, 2011

BON JOVI'S SOUL KITCHEN IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

If Jon Bon Jovi's music can't get him into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame (like anyone really cares about that Hall anyway!), maybe his charity work will put him in there? Jon Bon Jovi finally opened his charitable restaurant "Soul Kitchen" in the heart of the New Jersey suburbs of Red Bank. The restaurant is only a piece of the puzzle for the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which has built 260 homes for low-income residents in recent years. The Soul Kitchen is a "pay-what-you-can" restaurant that he and his wife, Dorothea, opened in what used to be an auto body shop near the Red Bank train station in the central Jersey suburb.

The restaurant will provide gourmet-quality meals to the hungry while enabling them to volunteer on community projects in return without the stigma of visiting a soup kitchen. Paying customers are encouraged to leave whatever they want in the envelopes on each table, where the menus never list a price. I guess Jon is hoping that people actually have a conscience and won't eat a full meal while leaving a couple dollars in that envelope. And by the way, take away the "L" in "Soul" and replace it with a "P" and you have your Soup Kitchen back, but I'm sure that's what we're all trying to avoid here.

According to Jon, when he learned that one in six people in this country goes to bed hungry, he knew that this was going to be the next phase of the Foundation’s work, which actually started several years ago when Dorothea and Jon started helping out at a food pantry at nearby St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church. They would later move their focus to the Lunch Break program, which fed 80 to 120 people a day, and they would call it, “The Soul Kitchen.” Their next step was to bring that name with them to a former auto body shop down the street from the Count Basie Theater, where Jon and the boys from BON JOVI have played many fundraising shows for local charities.
It took a year and about $250,000, but the restaurant now rivals any of its competitors in trendy Red Bank, with entrees like cornmeal crusted catfish with red beans and rice, grilled chicken breast with homemade basil mayo and rice pilaf, and grilled salmon with soul seasonings, sweet potato mash and sauteed greens, many of which were grown in the herb and vegetable garden right outside the restaurant’s doors.


Jon Bon Jovi, who resides in the neighboring Middletown, is pretty adamant about one thing. That this is not a soup kitchen! You can come to this restaurant and get the dignity of linens and silverware, and you’re served a healthy, nutritious meal. This is definitely not a burgers and fries joint! Jon says, “There’s no prices on our menu, so if you want to come and you want to make a difference, leave $20 in the envelope on the table. If you can’t afford to eat, you can bus tables, you can wait tables, you can work in the kitchen as a dishwasher or sous chef,” he said. “If you say to me, ‘I’m not a people person,’ I say, ‘That’s not a problem. We’ll take you back to Lunch Break to volunteer with those people. If you don’t want to volunteer with that, we’ll take you to the FoodBank.” After volunteering at one of those places, a person will be given a certificate good for a meal at The Soul Kitchen.

He and others at the restaurant want those who can afford to dine out to patronize the restaurant as well and pay what they consider market prices, or even a bit more than that, to help sustain The Soul Kitchen as a true community resource. For now, Jon said he is currently writing songs for the band’s next CD, which we won't see until 2013, along with another typically massive Bon Jovi tour. In the meantime, he and Dorothea plan to stay active in the restaurant, where he estimates he has worked at least once a week in recent months. The Soul Kitchen is open for dinner Thursday through Saturday, and offers Sunday brunch. So, if you ever wanted to meet Jon Bon Jovi! Here's your chance! Red Bank, NJ at The Soul Kitchen! I've met him too many times to even count, but to give back, this would be worth it!




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