As you probably know, we’re big fans of Giving Kitchen and their tireless efforts to help local hospitality workers in times of crisis. Since entering the Tennessee market from their home in Atlanta a few years back, Giving Kitchen has aided 187 applicants in need of aid, including 132 in Nashville for a total of more than $310,000 in assistance.
Already a mature organization when they started up in Nashville, Giving Kitchen is still growing its outreach rapidly, awarding 25 percent of their lifetime total assistance in the past 12 months — including almost $30,000 to Nashville workers during the second quarter of 2023. This is to say, they’re doing really good work and are making great use of the funds that they raise.
So speaking of fundraising, there's a fun opportunity coming up where you can pitch in to help Giving Kitchen, and by extension, the local food service community. They are planning their second annual Tennessee golf tournament at Hermitage Golf Course on Monday, Sept. 25, and all are invited to participate!
A 1 p.m. shotgun start means you won’t even have to wake up early that Monday, but you probably want to take the whole day off anyway, because you deserve it. A decidedly non-serious event, the tournament will be a scramble to encourage golfers of all abilities to participate. Foursomes are $1,200, with twosomes also available for $600 if you can’t rustle up three friends to play with. You’ll probably make two new friends with whoever they pair you up with.
A round of golf at the Hermitage can run up to $85 anyway, so it’s pretty much a bargain when you consider that your entry includes 18 holes plus a cart and free range balls, a nice gift for participating (GK is really good at their swag game!), a lunch before teeing off, food and beverage stations scattered around the course (which you know will be excellent considering who’s organizing this event), a raffle for door prizes and a grab-and-go dinner so you can head out quickly after the round before you have to buy everyone in the clubhouse a drink for your hole-in-one!
Only 24 foursomes are available for the event, so sign up for a twosome or a foursome at the event website lest you be left alone on the putting green when the rest of us tee off. Giving Kitchen is also seeking sponsors for the event, so if you’d like to get your company in front of some members and fans of the local hospitality community, or just contribute to this very worthy cause, contact Giving Kitchen’s corporate relations manager Amy Crowell at amy@thegivingkitchen.org. See you on the links!
Wednesday, Aug. 9, 1 Kitchen will also be raising some funds for a worthy cause with the quarterly A Supper That Sustains Us event benefiting food accessibility nonprofit Copia. The kitchen will join forces with Green Door Gourmet as chef Chris Cary and his staff prepare a six-course dinner for just two dozen guests. The series showcases many of the local purveyors, farmers and beverage partners that focus on sustainable methods to offer farm-fresh dining experiences a the restaurant.
The menu will feature dishes including Tomato Carpaccio, Roasted Bone Marrow, Seared Scallops, Broiled Squab and a farm-creation dessert. Attendees will also enjoy two cocktails and two mocktails paired with each course by beverage manager Harrison Deakin. Tickets for the dinner are $135 and are available at the event website.
For a city that used to have a dearth of high-end seafood restaurants, Nashville has certainly seen a recent bubbling up of fine fish. The next entrant in the competition for your aquatic dollars will be Detroit-based Joe Muer Seafood coming to the Capitol View neighborhood on Wednesday, Aug. 23. The new restaurant will be massive at 12,000 square feet, seating 300-plus patrons between the main dining room, central bar area, two private dining spaces and a large outdoor patio.
The kitchen will be led by chefs Daniel Scannell and Jim Oppat, who will oversee (oversea?) a menu of fresh sustainable seafood, sushi, premium aged meats and an extensive award-winning wine list, all of which are hallmarks of the original Joe Muer Seafood in the Motor City.
Dishes that diners can expect to see on the opening menu include a bacon-wrapped shrimp stuffed with crab imperial, a blackened redfish with crawdad “yabby” butter, a crab-stuffed flounder with grainy mustard beurre blanc sauce and a fresh Dover sole fillet, served tableside with Herbs de Provence, brown butter and lemon.
Joe Muer Seafood’s Nashville location at 500 11th Ave. N. will be open for dinner service 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Offering live piano music nightly, the bar opens daily at 4 p.m. with a happy hour on weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m. For more information, visit joemuer.com, follow on Instagram at @joemuerseafoodnashville or call 615-433-6837.
