Our Mission Statement
Building community by providing nutritious and delicious meals to the people of Jackson regardless of their ability to pay, while using as much locally grown, organic, and sustainably grown ingredients.
Our Vision
We strive to build a healthy community by providing delicious and nutritious food in a respectful and dignified manner to anyone who walks through the door and wants to contribute to our community. We envision that the quality of food and the comfortable welcoming atmosphere will draw people from all walks of life and entice them to become involved. Volunteers will feel satisfied by their experience on many levels, because the café is a means that positively impacts our community environmentally, economically, and socially.
Our Values
Every human innately has dignity and should be treated as such.
Everyone, regardless of economic status, is a member of our community. Each person brings different talents and resources with them, all having value.
Every role, whether staff, volunteer, or patron, has value.
We are unable to function without volunteers. Drop in, when ComeUnity Café opens to work in exchange for your meal. If you want to contribute to the café’s mission beyond exchanging work for food, volunteers also sign up to work in the kitchen.
Participating in community nourishes the soul.
ComeUnity Café can fill the basic need of hunger as well as the basic need of those who hunger to make a difference in the community.
Everyone needs a hand up at some point in life.
We have all experienced difficulties and seen friends, family, neighbors struggle. A dignified exchange of work and talent for nutritional food that also results in contributions for the greater good is empowering.
Our History
In 2013, ComeUnity Cafe opened their doors at 218 E. Main Street in downtown Jackson with the purpose of feeding everyone great, healthy food, regardless of ability to pay. Our mission is to create a caring, healthy community through access to great healthy food. We believe we are here to Love, to Feed, to Dignify.
Amy Crenshaw and her husband Jim learned about pay what you can cafes after their oldest daughter visited SAME Cafe in Denver. They are passionate about great healthy food served in a comfortable home like setting. With 9 kids, Amy already felt like she ran a small restaurant. So
opening the cafe, after some thought, felt like a great idea.
ComeUnity Cafe is a non-profit donation based cafe. We strive to treat all customers exactly the same. Diners order from a menu selection of two soups, two salads, and two sandwiches. They are then allowed to choose how they will donate for their meal – volunteering their time or donating money.
Our Garden
Located a half block to the west of the Cafe, the ComeUnity Cafe Garden exists to provide produce and fresh herbs for the Cafe and those in the community. It also serves as a sweet tranquil spot to just sit for a moment and reflect on God‘s provision for us.
Our garden was started for us by Cari Phillips Griffith before the café opened on a plot of land donated by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The idea was to be all organic and grow year-round. Today, we grow our own greens for salad, tomatoes, squash, beans, and anything else that our gardeners want to grow. Additionally, we have two large fig trees that produce figs in late summer and an abundance of herbs that are used throughout the cafe’s menu.
Since the start of the ComeUnity Cafe garden, there have been four volunteer head gardeners including three local Union students. Our current head gardener has been instrumental in obtaining donations for the garden and volunteers to help maintain the garden. All of our gardeners have brought their own unique touch to the garden area.
Our Team
Austin Brown - Head Chef
Austin came to the cafe in 2014 with several years of restaurant experience. He discovered his passion for “all things good food” during his various experiences.
Austin is married to his best friend, the love of his life Chelsea and they have 2 kids.
Austin loves the creativity that the cafe allows him to express and the sense of fulfillment that he receives while serving the community through the cafe.
In his free time, he loves movies, music (reggae in particular), tattoos, writing, reading. Austin is the witty one at the cafe and loves chatting with customers when he gets a chance.
Bo Kitzman - 2nd Chef
Bo loves all tacos “unequivocally”. Bo is new to the cafe in 2020.
Bo plays numerous musical instruments and plays in several bands. He has enjoyed music since he played in his first band in 8th grade. And he likes writing his own music.
Bo has a degree from Memphis/Lambuth. He started working with a local caterer in 2012 and discovered his interest in good healthy food during that time. He continued to nurture that interest while playing music.
Bo tends to be quiet but can be pulled into conversations about music, movies and he may surprise you with a different voice every time you talk to him.
Tina Varughese - All-Around Do-Gooder
Tina also started at the cafe in early 2020 after having volunteered and dined at the cafe for several years. Tina will greet you and take your order and get your food out to you-but don’t let that fool you….she does way more than that and can be relied upon to fill in wherever needed.
Tina is married to Thomas and they have 7 kids. Yep 7! Although if you drop by her house you will think they have more than 7 because Tina loves to cook, especially Indian food, and there are always an abundance of extra young folks waiting to be fed.
Tina and her family are active at New Life Church. She loves cooking, crocheting and entertaining. And she’s great at all of those.
Ellen Bennett - All-Around Do-Gooder
Ellen started at the cafe in 2020 also (2020 was a good year for the cafe finding great help).
Ellen has 4 kids and is busy playing chauffeur and chief cook for them. She has a gentle quiet spirit but she has a big love for serving others.
Ellen loves repurposing old furnishings and she’s quite handy at it. She discovered this love over the years after she started “garage saleing” with her dad when she was a kid. She rocks overalls better than any farm girl.
IMAGE COMING SOON
Daniel Freeman - Finance Guru
Daniel has given his time to the cafe since before the cafe opened. He has a full time job as a comptroller at Kilgore Flare and he takes care of “everything financial” keeping us open and operating.
Daniel and his wife, Emily, have 5 kiddos that they chase around. They are involved in their church. They are super handy, as they have renovated several houses and they are getting ready to take on a bit of farming. Thanks Emily, for loaning us Daniel! We’ll keep you in bacon, Daniel!
Amy Crenshaw - Creator & Founder
Amy loves to cook, travel, read and loves everything about Italy. They travel to Italy every fall to participate in the olive harvest at some friends olive grove and go to the olive mill for fresh olive oil. Jim and Amy live on a small farm and they raise chickens and alpacas. They added a nice green house to the farm in 2020-Jim grows the produce and Amy cooks it. She also loves any of her kids sports and activities and has spent countless hours at football and soccer games, gymnastics meets and volleyball games. She looks forward to many more years of kids activities as their family grows with grandkids now.
Amy loves visiting with customers and learning their stories. She’s pretty good at talking 😉 She can, on occasion, be found washing dishes, helping a little in the kitchen, helping at the front counter or running food out to customers. She loves seeing people serving at the cafe and seeing people being served.