“Constant rotation.”
That’s how Heather Bublick, co-owner of the Soul & Smoke, describes how busy things are at the “community fridge” in front of her restaurant.
“It gets used all day long,” she adds.
There are four such “fridges” in Evanston, where donors walk or drive up, and fill the pantry with perishable or non-perishable food.
Those in need can then take the items, no questions asked.
“The demand grows at holiday time,” Bublick says, “especially as prices are going up.”
So, 15 area restaurants have agreed to provide meals for the Soul & Smoke fridge.
Each restaurant has an assigned day (or days) between now and the end of the year to bring 25 meals. Bublick hopes to keep the restaurant donations going in 2024.
To find the restaurants, Bublick says she reached out to Sarah Stegner, the chef at Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook and a member of Chicago Chefs Cook, a group that provides food for various humanitarian causes.
Stegner, who recruited other restaurateurs, was visiting Soul & Smoke on Wednesday. After giving Stegner a tour of their expansion project, Bublick says “as soon as we came through the construction site there were already two families getting food” from the fridge.
Bublick started the fridge in 2021 during the COVID pandemic. Her infant son had just passed away, and Bublick says she “needed a good project” to take her mind off of the tragedy, at least temporarily.
Now, almost three years later, the fridge is still going strong.
Sometimes, Bublick says, she sees a social media post from someone who had just put food into the fridge.
“That’s at 8:30. By the time I get in at 9, the fridge is already empty.”
“We do what we can” to keep it stocked, Bublick says.
“But really, it’s a community effort,” and anyone in the community can donate.
The four fridges in our area are at Soul & Smoke,1601 Payne St.; CNE/OG, 1335 Dodge Ave.; Freedom Fridge, 619 Howard St., and Sunrise Fridge, 320 Madison St.