toledoblade.com --

An old familiar face is brightening up downtown Toledo after an 8 1/2 year absence.

My Brother's Place, the restaurant adjacent to Trinity Episcopal Church at Adams and Summit streets, is serving lunch for the first time since April, 2001.

"It's just extraordinary. It's new life for an old friend - and for an even better cause now than before," said the Rev. Elizabeth "Liddy" Hoster, Trinity's rector.

In addition to serving weekday lunches to downtown workers, My Brother's Place will be serving meals and helping Toledo's poor and needy on Monday evenings and providing jobs and job training to the unemployed or homeless.

This is the third incarnation of My Brother's Place. The restaurant first opened in 1976 and operated for nearly 20 years before closing in December, 1995. It reopened a few months later under the management of local restaurateur Tom Cousino, but closed for a second time in 2001.

Members of the Old Trinity Foundation, a nonprofit group affiliated with the church, had been talking for several years about reopening My Brother's Place, and last year decided to invest several thousand dollars into the kitchen to get it up to commercial code, said board members Rey Boeze and Greg Shumaker.

The spacious dining room was renovated and redecorated, from its glistening wooden floors to its freshly painted walls.
( THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON )

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"The idea was that if we get the kitchen ready, they will come," Ms. Hoster said.

Along came Elizabeth Sorge, a local caterer and member of Westgate Chapel in Sylvania, with the right combination of skills, energy, and vision to get the restaurant up and running again.

The spacious dining room was renovated, redesigned, and redecorated, from its glistening wooden floors to its freshly painted walls. Old dark-wooden pews and lockers that had been collecting dust in Trinity's basement were polished and refitted to make cabinets and room dividers.

Ms. Sorge, 39, of Petersburg, Mich., said she practically grew up in the kitchen cooking for large groups because her grandparents owned the former Acapulco Restaurant on South Street and she enjoys cooking for church events.

An enthusiastic person who enjoys being around people, Ms. Sorge is as excited about the ministries of My Brother's Place as she is about the menu that features a variety of sandwiches, soups, salads, and home-cooked meals.

She has hired three full-time and six part-time employees at the restaurant thus far and is working with local job-training agencies to help teach people a trade. The venue is open this week for lunch as it prepares for Monday's official grand opening.

One of the employees, Julie Napier, 47, is homeless and living in a shelter but hopes to get her own apartment soon, now that she is drawing a paycheck.

She moved to Toledo from Cleveland eight years ago and after a career in sales and marketing worked for a while at the former Pumpernickel's Deli on Collingwood Boulevard. "Jobs are difficult to find," she said. "Elizabeth has really helped me out."

Ms. Sorge hopes to hire more people who are down on their luck, and would consider expanding the restaurant's hours to add a breakfast menu if there's a demand. The restaurant also has three banquet rooms and is available for catering jobs.

My Brother's Place is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. A "house blessing party" and rededication will be held at 11:30 a.m. Sunday and the grand opening will be 11 a.m. Monday.

Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.

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