StarChefs - Sean Brock's Dear Nashville

Chef Sean Brock’s letter to the Nashville restaurant community.

DEAR NASHVILLE,

The last time I left Nashville was March 2nd, 2020. As of today, that was 757 days ago. I had flown to New York City to have a quick meeting and was returning to Nashville the very next day to get Joyland, my cheeseburger project, up and running. I was woken up at 5 a.m. by a text that said, “it’s bad”. I had no idea what the message was referring to. It turns out a vicious tornado had ripped through Nashville in the wee hours of the morning. It sounded like a lot of the damage was in East Nashville, where Joyland is and where I was building my new restaurants Audrey and June. Luckily, my restaurants were unscathed.

When I landed back home, I discovered many other people weren’t so lucky. The neighborhood looked like a war zone. It was one of the most gut-wrenching things I have ever witnessed. On our team chat someone asked, “what should we do?” Joyland had no power and no gas, and the businesses around us were barely standing or even gone altogether. I replied with the only answer I could come up with. “We have to feed people”. For days we lit grills outside and made as much food as we could. We walked around the neighborhoods handing out fried chicken biscuits to people who were cleaning up the remains of their homes or volunteering.

Just a few days later the pandemic hit. Once again, we were faced with “what should we do?” We quickly partnered up with some non-profits and started cooking again. It was a terrifying time – feeding people felt good, but there was so much more to do. Once word got out that we were feeding people,volunteers came out of the woodworks. Nashville always risesup, no matter what the circumstance. Witnessing the generosity and humility of this city for the last two years has been extraordinarily inspiring. When we were scrambling to keep people employed, we came up with so many pop ups that I lost count. Nashville showed up and bought whatever the hell we were cooking. It’s a time that I look back on and instantly feel exhausted. We were scratching and clawing to keep people employed and reinventing concepts left and right. And no matter what we did, Nashville showed up.

As it became increasingly clear there was no end in sight for the pandemic, we knew that more and more people needed assistance and that we could feed them. We were fortunate enough to partner with Rethink and began making meals for the community out of the Audrey kitchen. It’s not what I had envisioned for the first days of Audrey, but I feel so fortunate that we were able to break the kitchen in with meals prepared for our neighbors. As the need for meals continued to grow, we knew that we had to continue. Ben Tyson, who I hired to be the head sous chef at Audrey, had been leading the charge with the Rethink program. I wasn’t surprised at all when he came to me and said, “this is what I want to do now, feed our community full-time”. Witnessing him make this decision and career shift will always be one of the most inspiring moments of my career.

We decided to form a non-profit so the work could continue once Audrey was open and the kitchen would be used for our guests. Ben and I formed “Patchwork” and they moved into a beautiful new space and haven’t slowed down since. At last count, Ben and his team have cooked and served over 150,000 meals to our community. Now when you dine at Audrey or June, a portion of your bill goes to Patchwork to help create a meal for someone in need.

I often get asked why I picked up and moved to Nashville. The answer is simple. The community here is tough as nails, resilient, and always shows up when people need help. We have been through so much the last couple of years, but there is always a gift neatly wrapped in the suffering. The gift is the bond that has been formed between all of us. Nashville is my home and I couldn’t be more proud to live here and try my best to contribute each day.

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