Fresh Soul
– A Soul Food Restaurant with A Mission
What is Fresh Soul?
Why Soul Food?
Giving Hope and Building Community
What is Fresh Soul?
Located at 3029 E 5th Ave in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood, Fresh Soul is a social enterprise soul food restaurant with a job training program for teens. We serve the Spokane, WA community and beyond with authentic soul food in a vibrant restaurant located on a revitalizing block. As a job training program, we serve teens aged 14-18, who are low-income/low-wealth youth and youth of color living in Spokane and specifically the East Central neighborhood.
Front of the Fresh Soul restaurant located at 3029 E 5th Ave on the corner of Fiske and 5th Ave.
The individual inequities families and youth of our neighborhood face today are a result of long-term systemic and institutional racism and inequity. Fresh Soul addresses needs created by the atrocities of racism, redlining, and intentional disinvestment that created inequities in our neighborhood to begin with. Spokane’s Eastside is a historically Black community because racist housing covenants blocked Black families from living in other neighborhoods. In the 1960s, city leaders built the I-90 freeway through the neighborhood, literally tearing it in half with no regard for the devastation to Black-owned businesses and households. Shops and restaurants closed, and property values plummeted, which cemented an income and wealth gap that continues to disproportionately affect East Central households.
Why Soul Food?
Mr. Michael Brown is the founder and Executive Director of Fresh Soul and its parent nonprofit organization the Spokane Eastside Reunion Association (SERA). Mr. Brown, who grew up in the East Central neighborhood says the choice to serve Soul Food was intentional. There is a clear connection of Soul Food to the rich and important history of Black culture and its connection to its African Roots. A history that is deeply reflected in the staple recipes and techniques of good ol' soul food cooking. In soul food cooking, there are several key ingredients that establish a historical link to America’s dark slavery past and the African cultures that the enslaved carried with them: an example of a people's resiliency to turn meager rations into a distinctive and tasty cuisine.
RICE
The transport of the African variety of rice in particular through the slave trade arguably set the foundation for the most notable southern American culinary traditions. Since rice is a staple in many African dishes, enslaved Africans adapted their cooking in the Americas with the food items that were most accessible, creating some of the most renowned soul food staples like Jambalaya and Red Beans and Rice.
PORK
Pork has been the choice meat in the South for centuries, and the preferred method of preserving the meat in the past was to salt and smoke it. During the Atlantic slave trade, it was slaves who were frequently given the grueling task of preserving the meat. As a result, many of the techniques in curing meat are said to have been developed by African-Americans of the era.
GREENS
It’s no secret that many cultures have a practice of boiling leafy greens. Nowhere is this practice most common than in African countries, where the selection of leafy green vegetables is unparalleled. Several dishes across the African continent, such as Ethiopia’s gomen wat and Ghana’s kontomire stew, are comparable to the collard greens dish we are familiar with in the West.
As one of the most recognizable aspects of soul food cuisine, it is very clear that the culinary technique of boiling greens has a specific link to traditional African methods of eating.
Giving Hope and Building Community
We are dedicated to supporting underserved neighborhoods and at-risk youth in Spokane by instilling a sense of community, resilience, and celebration in the lives of all. We are committed to addressing intergenerational poverty, violence, and neglect in the Spokane area. Through our programs which include Fresh Soul, a Summer Basketball Camp, and our annual Community Celebration, we respond to our community’s needs by creating equitable opportunities for our youth to thrive.
Fresh Soul is a labor of love to our neighborhood and another way for us to stand united as we continue to build a healthy, thriving East Central Spokane. Ultimately, we help our community overcome and heal from past harm through our focus on hope and liberation.
