GREENFIELD — Jason Weaver, an Iraq War combat veteran in the U.S. Army and Greenfield resident, said he had always dreamed of opening a restaurant and calling it “Freedom Cafe,” focused on serving quality breakfast food and building community.
After taking over the restaurant that formerly housed Bonnie B’s Country Kitchen on Oct. 9, Jason and Christine “Chrissy” Weaver made that dream a reality. The couple, who are raising eight children, now own and operate Freedom Cafe, located at 204 Main St.
“Freedom means a lot to me — it means a lot to a lot of people,” Jason said. “I do a lot for veterans and for fathers in the community, and helping them understand the values that they carry in today’s society. Having a place where people can come together and communicate, talk and hang out and feel like they’re a part of society.”
The Weavers renovated the restaurant entirely, painting the walls purple and furnishing the dining area with handmade tables crafted by Tom Mann of Bernardston. With Jason behind the grill and Chrissy waiting tables, the business is staying true to its mission of being a hub for family and community.
Chrissy explained that with her prior experience working at a day care and Jason’s history working as a cook at various restaurants, such as the Whately Diner, the Friendly’s on the Mohawk Trail and the former Bonnie B’s kitchen, the skills that the couple have used to raise and feed their 10-person family have been useful in running a restaurant.
“I would be an anxious mess trying to figure out how to cook for our big family. I had worked at a day care, so I felt like I knew how to manage a lot of kids,” Chrissy said. “The running joke was, well [Jason] has got a lot of kitchen experience. All these years, he has been the primary house cook. So I feel like us coming to work every day, it’s really not that much different. It’s a little different, but it’s been a lot of fun.”
Even the cafe’s portion-based menu aims to make the restaurant more family-friendly by offering “little hungry,” “kind of hungry,” “hungry” and “starving” sizes and prices for meals, the couple explained. With a big family, Jason said he and Chrissy often struggled to order portions for smaller children.
“We have a big family, so going out to eat, we know what it’s like to have to order for a lot of people. So in that aspect, when you go out with little kids, they just need a pancake, they just need a drink; they don’t need a whole meal,” Jason said. “We’ve noticed a lot of places you go, you don’t really get that option. So we want to be able to provide that to our customers.”
While the business is currently open from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 7 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, Jason said he and Chrissy are open to the idea of expanding their hours in the future.
Paying homage to Bonnie B’s popular corned beef hash side, Jason kept it on the new menu, while adding his own homemade sausage gravy offered in sizes referred to as the “little hug” and “big hug.”
Other popular menu items include the Western omelet, along with Sugarloaf Jay’s Pancakes, which are named after Mount Sugarloaf and equipped with a small American flag at the top of the stack.
Freedom Cafe has also partnered with Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Co., of Orange, to serve locally sourced coffee to patrons.
In the first few weeks since the Weavers took ownership of the restaurant, they have observed numerous instances of customers paying other customers’ bills, or customers helping out with service and distributing ketchup packets to patrons. When Chrissy learns that it is a customer’s birthday, Jason said he has heard the entire restaurant break into a “Happy Birthday” sing-along.
To remain a community-oriented staple, Chrissy mentioned plans to launch a “Wall of Kindness” in which patrons have the option to donate money, which will then be converted into Freedom Cafe gift cards and distributed — with the help of Community Action Pioneer Valley — to those in need.
“We’ve already raised about $340, and while it’s great that our community offers food pantries and free clothing, babysitting vouchers and EBT, what people really could use sometimes is a break from their reality, and to be able to take your kids out for breakfast or lunch feels normal. It gives a single mom a break from having to figure out and create her own meals, and it allows people to feel like they’re a part of the community,” Chrissy said. “It also gives people their dignity, because gift cards are very common, and so if you come to me and you pay for your meal with a gift certificate, then I don’t know that it’s from Community Action, and neither does the table next to you.”
In the weeks ahead, the Weavers plan to open a “corner store” at the side of their location facing Chapman Street, where customers can buy drinks, grab-and-go sandwiches or small gifts.
“We’re excited to be here, and the location that we’re in, you know, to be in the center of Greenfield, just to be able to kind of be in the heart of it and help out as much as we can,” Jason said. “[Chrissy] makes everybody feel as if she’s known them forever when they walk in the door, and she comes back to me and says ‘compliments to the chef’ a couple times a day.”
Freedom Cafe’s website can be found at eatfreedomcafe.com.