The Garden is a space dedicated to feeding people who need it most, while helping heal the community and moving forward together.
FERGUSON, Mo. — Feeding those in need while reflecting on the past and building a better future, that’s the mission of a new restaurant opening up soon in north St. Louis County.
The Garden restaurant and reflection center in Ferguson is a place where people will be able to get much more than a hot meal.
Civil Righteousness President and CEO Jonathan Thomas said the space is also dedicated to what led up to the unrest in the city 10 years ago and what the community can do to move forward.
“We want this place to be a place of healing. Healing is not something that we can humanly dictate, but it’s something that we can set an atmosphere for,” he said.
Thomas’ nonprofit focuses on spiritual, cultural and economic renewal through holy activism.
“When Ferguson broke out in 2014, we felt that we needed to come here and be a part of the solution. We decided to come temporarily and 10 years later, we’re still here,” he said.
Thomas linked up with John Michel, Food is Love president and Social Kitchen founder, to help The Garden come to life, with a goal to create an atmosphere for people to gather, learn, connect and reflect.
The building along North Florissant Road has been in the community for decades and used to be the hub of the area. Now, Michel said they hope the space can become the community gathering spot once again.
“Food is the ultimate peacemaker. It is the ultimate unifier, right? It does force people to come across something like this, called the table, so that we get to know each other more, and that’s the beginning of something special,” he said.
That something special starts in the kitchen. Willis Mosby is expanding his Man, That’s Good food truck into this co-op kitchen collaborative café with The Garden.
“It’s that comfort cheat food that when your husband leaves the house, they always say, ‘We didn’t have anything,’ but they came to see me on the truck,” he said.
Mosby is one of the many graduates of the ‘Food is Love’ food truck apprenticeship program.
“It feels absolutely wonderful for me because as I think about the food itself, it creates a love aspect rather than just doing something,” he said.
According to Michel, his nonprofit invests in training entrepreneurs’ while helping nourish the bodies of those who need it most.
“We develop entrepreneurs, and we focus on getting free hot restaurant, quality food to people who need it most with dignity and love and respect,” he said.
‘The Garden’ is one of the nonprofit’s 29 restaurants, according to Michel, that uses their Currency of Caring program where anyone can donate $8 online or in-person. That $8 is turned into a coin that people can give to others or drop off at any of the restaurants, so people who are hungry can get a free meal.
“We celebrate opportunity to be able to have someone come get a hot meal, and in that moment, it just doesn’t fill their bellies, it actually uplifts their souls,” he said.
‘The Garden’ is different than the other restaurants though because it’s going to uplift souls in more ways than one. Thomas said that’s because of what’s on the other side of the restaurant’s wall, the ‘Imago Dei Gallery.’
“This space is really an interpretation center, transformation center in the skin of a coffee shop in an art gallery,” he said.
Thomas said the space is dedicated as an area for people to look back at the past.
“We have this wall with significant historical events that have taken place in our city that have led up to Ferguson,” he said.
It’s not just about looking at the history of the St. Louis area, according to Thomas, the gallery is also about allowing people to tap into ‘unseen wounds.’
“This community has probably processed very hard conversations, more than most communities, but there’s still a lot of work to do, and I think people are eager to do that work without the tone of anger and to do it in an atmosphere of hope, and so that’s what we want to do here,” he said.
Thomas and Michel both hope people will use The Garden as a place to work to move forward as a community together.
“Ferguson could be a place that sparked national division 10 years ago, but what if Ferguson and the St. Louis region has a unique role to play in transforming the narrative and changing our nation? What if it could be at the forefront of healing?” Thomas said.
“We see this as a catalyst of transformation for the community to learn from its past, but to build a way better tomorrow,” Michel said.
The Garden restaurant and reflection center will have a soft opening and holiday market Sunday, Dec. 15 from noon to 5 p.m. The grand opening will be Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January.
The Garden is located at 100 North Florissant Road, Ferguson, MO 63135.
The restaurant will have grab and go food from Man, That’s Good and The Garden always inside. Thomas said outside in the parking lot there will also be different local food trucks, also through Food is Love.
You can donate to Civil Righteousness here and Food is Love here.
