The Friars' Table, with saint-inspired menu, aims to leave workers, diners feeling uplifted

This winter Cleveland diners will be able to taste and see saint-inspired dishes while sipping Trappist-brewed beer in a restaurant that gives jobs to men and women in need.

The Friars’ Table is a collaboration between the Cleveland Capuchin Ministries and EDWINS, a restaurant institute that trains formerly incarcerated adults. After the friars were given a generous bequest, Capuchin Father Phil Bernier went to EDWINS founder Brandon Chrostowski with his vision for the eatery.

“The goal of the restaurant is to give the city not only a great restaurant, but hope,” said Chrostowski. “We want to create a beautiful space where people can come together over good food, and leave feeling inspired and uplifted.”

When Cleveland native Father Bernier thinks about his hometown, he sees a Midwestern city with a large Catholic presence, strong schools and hospitals, and a vibrant arts and restaurant scene. But he also has witnessed the city’s post-industrial decline and dramatic population collapse.

“It’s one of the poorest cities in America,” he told OSV News. “There’s a tremendous gap in the distribution of wealth.”

Chrostowski specifically wanted to uplift the distressed city through EDWINS, which stands for Education Wins. As a drug-dealing teenager, he was almost sentenced to prison but instead was given probation. After bouncing from job to job, he eventually found his purpose working in a kitchen.

“I ended up getting out of Detroit, going to school (at the Culinary Institute of America, and) working in Paris and New York,” he said. “But when I heard the stories back home of people being murdered and put in prison, I said there’s got to be a better way to give back. In 2004, I had this idea called EDWINS.”

Today, that idea has grown into a six-month training program within a French fine dining restaurant, a butcher shop and a bakery. A campus for the former inmate trainees includes housing, a library, a gym, a garden and a child care center. Of the 75 men and women who graduate each year, around 95% find jobs at EDWINS or other restaurants.

“We just keep spreading the idea of fair and equal second chances — using education through food as a way to achieve your next start in life,” said Chrostowski.

When thinking of all of the transformations he’s witnessed, Chrostowski singles out one woman who gave birth while in prison.

“By the time she came to us, she had repaired a lot of things in her life,” said Chrostowski. “Next thing you know, she has her kid back and is working a (restaurant) job and her life is together.” It’s gratifying when a graduate starts a successful restaurant of his own, said Chrostowski. But seeing a woman overcome addiction and reunite with her child was something else.

For years, the Cleveland Capuchin friars have served in parish ministry, and more recently in prison ministry, too. But Father Bernier, who serves as pastor of St. Peter Church, parochial vicar of St. Malachi Church and priest chaplain at Cleveland State University, is pretty sure they’ve never been involved in workforce development before, especially by way of founding a restaurant. “This is a totally new venture,” he said.

After almost four years and two previous possible locations, the Capuchins found a spot for The Friars’ Table in Cleveland’s theater district. The restaurant will employ around 30 people with an emphasis on hiring those going through a period of difficulty, such as people facing homelessness or life in a new country.

“This is an environment where they can learn professional skills. (It) gives them an opportunity to enter (the) workforce,” said Father Bernier.

After researching the traditions of monastic food, The Friars’ Table team created a menu focused on fresh, simple, healthy foods with nods to saints and Catholic cuisine sprinkled throughout.

Diners can sample pretzels and mustard, pea soup, cod with tomato chutney, fruit cake and numerous other dishes. The drinks menu offers Chartreuse, a Carthusian-created liqueur, as well as coffee and tea from the Wyoming Carmelites of Mystic Monk Coffee. The dining room, which seats around 120, features a refectory table from Capuchin College in Washington, D.C.

Father Bernier hopes that between the food and the atmosphere, The Friars’ Table will be an authentically Catholic space that feels inviting to everyone.

“We’re trying to meet the people where they are right now,” he said, noting that if people aren’t always going to Sunday Mass, they’re often going to Sunday brunch. “I’m seeing this as an opportunity to evangelize in a new way, to reach out to people who may not even know the church (but could) come to experience a piece of church in a simple way.”

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