On Detroit's east side, a longtime soup kitchen is undergoing a transformation. Gone is its cafeteria-style service. In its place, come next year: full-service meals, à la restaurant.
Guests of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen's Meldrum Community Center — many of whom are experiencing homelessness, mental illness and addiction — will be seated, served a starter course, an entrée, dessert, coffee. The tables, intentionally rectangular to foster conversation, will be cleared by volunteers in between. Murals will color the building's walls. The goal? Dignified hospitality. It's all part of the Meldrum Community Center's $2.4 million renovation into Refettorio Detroit. In a few months, Detroit will join 12 other locations across the globe with a Refettorio,
including Harlem and San Francisco.
"None of us are just walking stomachs and neither are our guests. They have hearts and they have brains and hopefully some of the art, the culture, will also feed those spirits as well," said Gary Wegner, executive director of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, in an interview with the Free Press ahead of a media tour of the facility currently under construction.
The project is a partnership with Food for Soul, a global nonprofit foundedby Italian chef Massimo Bottura and his wife, Lara Gilmore, to reduce food waste and social isolation. Refettorio is Italian for refectory or dining hall. The ideais to turn surplus ingredients into meals, shared in community. The 8,000-square-foot Detroit "dining room" — designed and built, respectively, by Michigan-based Constantine George Pappas AIA Architecture/Planning and the Ferlito Group — broke ground in the spring and construction is slated to wrap up in January. Wegner projected a tentative community open house for early February.
"Hospitality is something that we know in the restaurant industry and we have a set of expectation of ... beauty and luxury, of what kind of food, in what style, how it's delivered to the table that's only available for a few and what I think Refettorio Detroit reminds us of as it opens, with this long history of supporting the community, is that it's for everyone," said Jill Conklin, co-director of Food for Soul.
Refettorio Detroit is expected to serve an estimated 200 to 250 meals a day. The space will include a lounge area, a dining space, a finishing kitchen and production kitchen. The service will consider dietary restrictions. Refettorio Detroit will feature local artists, including tilemakers, muralists, potters and woodworkers.
As for the menu, Capuchin Soup Kitchen's Chef Alison Costello will be in charge, though Refettorio Detroit will also have guest chefs its first year.
"Fine food is for everyone," Costello, director of food service and hospitality for Refettorio Detroit, said during a tour on Wednesday, Sept. 23. The food will be plated instead of served on trays. Some examples of dishes: Moroccan chicken with preserved lemons and stuffed portobello mushroom caps.
The Capuchin Soup Kitchen, founded in 1929, has several programs including meal sites and a grocery store-style service center for food and clothing. The Catholic nonprofit has seen need rise in recent years, as families struggle with high food costs. In Michigan, more than 1.5 million people are food insecure, accordingto a 2024 analysis from Feeding America.
During construction, the Capuchin Soup Kitchen has a climate controlled tent on a parking lot so guests can come without an interruption of service. Meals, showers and support services are still available at the Meldrum Community Center located at 1264 Meldrum Street in Detroit. For the holidays, the Solanus Casey Center has allowed Capuchin to use their dining room, Wegner said.
For more information, go to www.refettoriodetroit.org/.
Reach reporter Nushrat Rahman at nrahman@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit soup kitchen will offer full service meals in 2027
