Angel of Edgewood has big plans
North Hartford establishment will be part restaurant, part food pantry and soup kitchen
Jendayi Scott-miller, the Angel of Edgewood, is opening a community cafe in Hartford’s North End where people in need can dine with dignity.
HARTFORD — A grocery distribution effort that started in the North End of Hartford early in the coronavirus pandemic is now opening a community cafe — part restaurant, part food pantry and soup kitchen — where people in need will be able to dine with dignity.
Jendayi Scott-miller’s organization Angel of Edgewood is pairing the cafeteria with a resource center, where a regional bank plans to teach financial literacy and seniors can come to socialize. She hopes to finish renovating and connecting the two storefronts at 657 Blue Hills Ave. in the next month or two so she can open in early fall.
Restaurant meals costing $10-$12 will help offset the cost of providing similar meals to people who can’t afford to pay, Scottmiller said. She hopes to serve 500 to 600 free meals each day, and has found volunteers who cook Spanish, Italian and Polish cuisines to keep the daily menu diverse.
Scott-miller says she’ll want to be in the kitchen every day, too, cooking the soul and comfort food that she made for countless seniors and families during the pandemic.
“They all love macaroni and cheese — my macaroni and cheese,” she said.
The operation will fill a vacant corner of a block of businesses on Blue Hills Avenue, where there are eight salons, three markets,
two restaurants and a liquor store, but no community services since the Hartford Public Library Blue Hills branch closed in 2017 against the fervent protests of area residents.
While the main focus will be feeding the hungry, Angel of Edgewood Community Cafe and Resource Center also aims to fill some of the void left by the library, which had a 68-year history on the block.
“This is one of the areas that hasn’t had any revitalization or support and needs to be revitalized, so this is a good start,” Scottmiller said Tuesday as she walked through her new space.
T’challa Williams, a co-founder of local authors and artists group Hartford’s L.I.T., grew up off of Blue Hills Avenue and fell in love with reading while getting books from the old library for her grandmother. Now a live-in caretaker for the 84-year-old, Williams is relieved she’ll once again have somewhere around the corner to bring her grandmother for food, activities, human interaction and any resources they need.
“It’s more than just a plate,” Williams, 46, said. “Whatever it is you might need — I could go in there and say, ‘I’m coming apart dealing with my grandmother with dementia, do you know someone I could go to?’ The intimacy and connection of being able to walk into a building and ask for help means so much to a community that hasn’t been able to.”
The project is being funded by Farmington-based Friar Architecture, Downes Construction Company of New Britain, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, 4-CT (Connecticut COVID Charity Connection) and Fairview Capital.
Work is underway at the two units at 657 Blue Hills Ave., a prior home to several markets and restaurants, to knock down the dividing wall and create an open space between the cafeteria, food pantry and resource center.
Scott-miller initially planned to work out of the Swift Factory in the North End, where the aspiring caterer had signed a lease in March 2020, just before she began cooking for area seniors for free. As the pandemic worsened and her community’s hardships turned to hunger, she put the plans for her company on hold and instead turned her own home into a warehouse and her street into a weekly food distribution site, moving up to 2,000 boxes of food every Wednesday from about May through October 2020.
By December, she was building out her kitchen and pantry space in the Swift Factory when her rental van was broken into in the parking lot. The thieves made off with dozens of donated Christmas gifts for her holiday giveaway, Project Angel Wings.
Over time, she decided the Swift Factory was not a good fit and moved her equipment into storage and the food pantry back into her home. While she planned for the future, Scott-miller continued distributing groceries and fresh produce from area farms to families in need and a rotation of Hartford senior centers.
She also recently started a diaper bank, thanks to frequent donations from Lowe’s in Bloomfield.
Her new storefront on
Blue Hills Avenue was lined Tuesday with tall stacks of diapers, wet wipes and bottles of hand soap and bleach.
As Scott-miller was locking up, she noticed one of her clients, a neighbor from Edgewood Street, sitting in a parked car outside. Scottmiller tried to send the woman home with some of the cleaning products and encouraged her to come check out the new space soon.
“We’re going to be moving here, so this is where you’ll come to get your food now,” Scott-miller told her. “If you don’t feel like cooking dinner one night, you can come here.”
Down the block, some men were watching a game of chess play out on the flatbed of one of their trucks. One of the onlookers, 32-year-old Philip Jackson, was surprised to hear the new cafe would welcome non-paying customers who are going through hard times.
A place like that would fill a need in any part of the city, said Jackson, who has a music studio in the North End.
“That’s touch the heart right there. That’s what’s up,” Jackson said. “We have three or four restaurants here, but they’re not going to let you eat for free.”
Scott-miller inherited her love of cooking from chefs and caterers on both sides of her family. Her grandparents were known on Edgewood Street for always cooking enough for their eight children and anyone else who might stop by hungry.
She’s also spent a lot of time in soup kitchens, where she noticed people usually eat with their heads hanging, looking depressed or embarrassed as they’re rushed through their meals.
Meanwhile, she’s met a number of elderly people and families in Hartford who are living in cold flats and spending all of their money on rent, without enough left over to pay their gas bills or to save up for appliances. Some of her clients have spent years cooking unhealthy, one-pot meals on electric skillets because they don’t have an oven or stove top.
She hopes the Community Cafe will be a place where everyone feels comfortable.
“And the way it’s designed, no one knows or no one cares if you’re paying,” she said. “It’s just going to be awesome.”