There are countless pieces to the organization called Common Table. Today a big piece came to us in the form of a plank of walnut, four inches thick, 32 inches wide, 20 feet long. This will be the piece that is the table at Common Table.
The other week, days after taking possession of the Common Table commercial space, Bob Pearson and I worked to remove the letters of the former restaurant off the exterior window. Many people passed by as it was the weekend of the annual food festival called Bite of Bend.
Late in the afternoon our walnut man came riding down the sidewalk on a beautiful wooden Renovo bicycle made in Portland. I commented on the bike and asked if it was what it looked like, made of wood. It was, and after a few minutes discussing the bicycle and a few more discussing the Common Table project, the man mentioned that he had a walnut plank that might be just right for the Common Table.
A few weeks have passed since this initial conversation, but today we went out to look at the piece. The plank the man has in mind for us is one of several milled from an old walnut tree felled on the property of a Catholic church in the Willamette Valley. Each plank has the wavy varied edge of the natural tree, as unique as each person that will one day sit around it.
Category Archives: Daily Blog
Local Food Sourcing for Common Table!
In the pursuit of locally sourced food for the Common Table, we have met many wonderful people that are committed to providing Central Oregon grown produce and livestock. This week I met Nicole Timm of Central Oregon Locavore, and Sarahlee Lawrence of Rainshadow Organics. I met both of these woman at Nicole’s garage on NW Davenport where the two cooperate every Thursday afternoon to make local food products and produce available for the Bend community. The garage acts as one part local food market and one part CSA drop for Rainshadow. Against one wall of the garage several shelves are stocked with value added food products from Central Oregon, this is one of the pieces Nicole contributes, and she offers me samples of Baked bread and iced-tea mate as we wait for Sarahlee to arrive with boxes of fresh green produce from her farm in Terrebonne. Sarahlee arrives in a red diesel truck stacked with plastic boxes filled with greens. She wears a well worn sweat ringed King Ropes hat and her calloused muddy hands signal that she is every bit the farmer who has raised the crops coming in to the garage. Our community is well served by these hard-working women who are making locally produced food a choice at kitchen tables across Central Oregon. We are committed to making this choice at the Common Table.
Common Table at the Farmer’s Market Bend, OR
I procured three items at the Farmer’s Market yesterday: A mixed bag of Shitake and Maitake mushrooms for $10, a basket of Willamette Valley blueberries for $3, and I was given a block of Tomme cheese by E. Pierre Kolisch, owner of Juniper Grove Goat Cheese of Redmond, OR.
I was looking for a cheese similar to one I know from Boulder, CO by the name buttercup, made by Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy. Pierre is the sort of man who knows his line of work, his cheese, and other cheese makers, and so of course he knows of Haystack, a leading goat cheese maker. We discussed Boulder cheese makers for a bit before I asked for a sample of his beautiful looking gruyere. Tasty, but not quite what I was looking for. There was one next to it called a tomme, a cheese I have never heard of, but it looked very similar to what I was after. A sample was all I needed. It was firm but had the soft texture and light taste that buttercup had. Pierre, perhaps knowing that I was a future bulk buyer for Common Table, gave me a quarter pound for free. Life in the food business has its perks.
On Community and Space
The Common Table Café is a space for community, but for the majority of this past week, 150 Oregon Ave. sat empty and vacant. Brown butcher paper hides the emptiness from passing eyes. The space shows no signs of life. It is important that we recognize the distinction between the inanimate nature of a building contrasted to the unique life of a community as Common Table prepares to renovate and change the space into a place of welcome.
People often associate community to a place. We remember our hometown landmarks, buildings, and neighborhoods when we think of our home community. We remember the places where we feel comfortable. We remember the places where we hang out. We remember where we can walk in the door and see a welcoming face. We remember the places “where everyone knows your name” (younger readers: Google ‘Cheers’). We associate the bonds of community with the place we experience community.
But community is more than place; community is people. The connections we make with one another are what define a community. We look to make connections with people who share the same values, morals, theologies (or anti-theologies), philosophies, interests, and politics. Without theses connections, the place is valueless.
150 Oregon Ave. was empty this past week except for a moment on Tuesday morning when a small group met to pray. This is the first community to form in Common Table. It was a simple experience. Six people sat in the old Cork, jaguar-print booths and discussed their concerns, worries and joys. After an open discussion, the group prayed for each other and left. Each participant dispersed from Common Table back into his or her world, but for a moment on Tuesday morning, these diverse people were a community in a place. They could have met anywhere in the world, but they met at Common Table to form community.
I hope this community will continue to meet at Common Table, and I hope more communities will find a home in our space. I look forward to a time when the Common Table Café provides space for multiple communities with diverse ideas. My dream is that the communities of Common Table will be a miniature sampling of the communities in Bend, and I dream that these communities will argue, debate, and disagree but at the same time respect and love each other in recognition that all these communities share a common space… a common table.
-Walter
CT intern, modest egotist, practical idealist, and conscientious dreamer
Common Table in The Bulletin:
from The Bulletin:
Bend restaurant takes different path
Common Table to operate as nonprofit, offer food vouchers for underprivileged
By David Holley By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin The Bulletin
Last modified: June 29. 2010 5:44AM PST
A group of Central Oregonians is planning to open a nonprofit restaurant in downtown Bend in August that will use excess funds from its sales to provide free meals to low-income and homeless community members.
The cafe, to be called Common Table and run by a group with the same name, is opening in the space on Oregon Avenue formerly occupied by Cork, a fine-dining restaurant that sold its assets to Common Table and closed earlier this month after nine years in operation. The cafe’s premise is to create a space for both privileged individuals, who pay for meals, and the underprivileged, who will receive donated meal vouchers, to dine together, said cafe organizer Zach Hancock.
“We wanted to value humans, humanity, and highly value the Earth (on) which we live,” Hancock said. “We have a high priority to be a good contribution to Bend.”
To operate as a nonprofit, Common Table must donate a certain amount of its revenues, about 15 to 20 percent, according to group members. It will do that through the vouchers, which work like gift cards and allow individuals to use them as if they were cash.
Common Table signed a three-year lease Friday for the former Cork space, and is now renovating the restaurant. The group is in discussions with other nonprofits, such as NeighborImpact and the Family Access Network, which may distribute the vouchers, said Bob Pearson, a group founder and Bend resident who moved here nine years ago after retiring from a career in California’s Silicon Valley.
Pearson said customers will be able to buy vouchers at a discounted rate and give them to people asking for money on the street. A $10 voucher might cost a customer $8, he said.
“For most people, they come by and it’ll look like any other restaurant,” Pearson said.
He said the restaurant will have box lunches for people who may need a shower, adding that they won’t turn people away who need a meal, but that the restaurant, like any other, will still maintain requirements for dining inside.
Nonprofit restaurants aren’t new.
John Hamilton, vice president of communications for the Oregon Restaurant Association, said most restaurants participate in some kind of philanthropic activity. Others have operated on a pay-what-you-will basis to determine the value of food and market positioning with limited success, he said.
“One of the truths in our industry is that nine out of 10 restaurants are engaged in philanthropic activity,” Hamilton said. “Everyone’s doing something.”
Pearson thinks that nonprofits like his will become more common.
A Missouri-based national restaurant chain, Panera Co., made headlines for having opened a nonprofit restaurant where customers can pay the suggested menu price but don’t have to, according to a June 25 article by The Associated Press. Paying more or less is allowed, and most people pay the suggested cost or more, according the article.
The nonprofit, run by the same company that has about 1,400 Panera Bread restaurants in 40 states, made $100,000 in revenues during its first month, the AP said.
“This is catching some real interesting steam in this new economy, where corporations are recognizing they have to do more than just make a profit,” Pearson said.
Common Table can only put suggested prices on its cafe menus because it’s a nonprofit, Pearson said, but it will model its menus to encourage people to pay at least those prices — likely ranging from $3 to $15.
Pearson said the group received a low-cost deal for the downtown space because it’s a nonprofit. It will use $280,000 in donated or pledged funding to renovate the building and to pay for other necessary costs during the next three years.
Most of the staff will be volunteers, but cooks and certain management positions, including Hancock, will be paid.
Common Table also plans to use Pacific Northwest products, most of which will be locally grown, said Hancock,. Common Table has its own community garden off Knott and Brosterhous roads in southeast Bend.
Both Hancock, who said he previously operated a nonprofit coffee shop in Colorado, and Pearson said the cafe is not meant to be a soup kitchen. They said it will serve high-quality breakfasts and lunches. At night, it will host events ranging from concerts to speakers to group discussions with meals themed around the event. It also will have a liquor license.
“It’s about giving dignity and respect to all,” Hancock said.
150 Oregon St.
Yesterday we used our new keys and began the process of transforming 150 Oregon St. into what will be the Common Table Cafe. Butcher paper went up over the windows, Common Table Cafe stenciled in black. The old Cork letters were removed - no easy task as they had been baked on by the sun over nine years. Many folks stopped and chatted on the busy Bite of Bend Sunday. Projected date for opening is less than eight weeks away – with plenty of work to do before then!