Turkey Chop Gourmet Grill to Give Extra Helping of Community Love for Thanksgiving

West Humboldt Park restaurant to give away 250 turkeys and serve holiday dinner to 1,000-plus in need
West Humboldt Park’s Turkey Chop Gourmet Grill
West Humboldt Park’s Turkey Chop Gourmet Grill

The week of Thanksgiving, West Humboldt Park’s Turkey Chop Gourmet Grill will serve an extra helping of community love by giving away 250 turkeys Monday at noon, then serving free Thanksgiving dinner Thursday to 1,000-plus people identified as in need or homeless.

Following Monday’s splurge of turkeys, the no beef, no pork eatery will transform into a soup kitchen from 1 to 3 p.m. to serve its weekly free lunch to the indigent. Quentin Love, 43, started the free meal initiative in March 2014 with help from the West Humboldt Park Development Council and in partnership with the Chicago Food Depository. Since then, Turkey Chop, located at 3506 W. Chicago Ave., has provided free meals to some 52,000 residents. To date, Turkey Chop is the only full-service restaurant (offering dine-in, delivery and catering) the Depository has ever worked with as a soup kitchen once a week.

Love, a former U.S. Marine who served in Operation Desert Storm, has been in the restaurant business nearly 15 years. In that time, his menu and charitable giving has been geared toward providing healthier food choices to residents living in “food deserts,” communities with scant groceries or access to fresh fruits and vegetables that have high incidence of diabetes and heart disease such as Austin, West Humboldt Park, Bronzeville and Chatham.

“I believe that a poor diet and lack of access to healthy food choices contributes to the violence we see in our communities,” Love said. “West Humboldt Park has a large number of homeless, including entire families, and the drug problem is horrendous. I wanted to show the community that people care and give those down on their luck an opportunity to embrace what’s good for them, starting with what they put in their bodies. And, maybe that might inspire them to do better in other aspects of their lives. It’s one way, I believe, to start moving this community toward sustainability.”

The Depository buys most of the food Turkey Chop serves for the free lunches on Monday; Love picks up the tab for the rest from restaurant proceeds. The soup kitchen is an initiative of his nonprofit, the Love Foundation, which he founded in 2001 to provide afterschool activities and teach non-violence to South Side youth. Love emphasized that volunteers are always welcome and needed, as is additional funding to support the program.

“My mission is to heal the community through food and programming,” he said.

On December 14, Love will appear as a contestant on the “Veterans Holiday Showdown” episode of the television show “Guy’s Grocery Games” hosted by Guy Fieri on Food Network.

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