Serving cold gazpacho soup on a hot afternoon at the recent Loving Local fundraiser was inspired.
So, it’s no surprise the chef who created it was Terrance Whitley, executive chef/co-founder of Inspire Community Café.
“I knew it was going to be hot,” says Whitley, 37. And he knew he had to make enough to serve 250 people.
Whitley was aware Central BBQ was going to serve meat. So, he thought, “I won’t feel bad about bringing something cold. Give everybody a little refreshing moment from being in the sun.”
Taking part in the Project Green Fork fundraiser was a given. Whitley, who is “always looking to help out,” began doing volunteer work at St. Patrick Catholic Church when he was 10 years old. “St. Patrick’s had an after-school program. We used to do little stuff like rake leaves and community clean-up projects.”
A native Memphian, Whitley grew up nearby in Foote Homes and Cleaborn Homes. “I needed help when I was a kid. My family was poverty-stricken. So, I just wanted to help people the way I wanted somebody to help me.”
As a child, Whitley was able to get something to eat, thanks to St. Patrick’s, which passed out food to the homeless. “I knew St. Patrick’s had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And I knew when I went in church they were passing out doughnuts and stuff like that. I was just trying to look for sustainable food ’cause we didn’t have much at home.”
Some days when he was young, Whitley went without food. “We were down bad.”
On those days, he would “just go to sleep, man. And, hopefully, the days are brighter tomorrow. Some days we just didn’t have it.”
Whitley began cooking when he was in his mid-20s. “I ended up realizing one day that I was a bum and that I needed a job. But I didn’t want to flip burgers. I didn’t want to do any warehouse things.”
He focused on getting a restaurant job. “I just knew I wanted to be in a position to move up and acquire a skill.”
Whitley became a dishwasher at South of Beale on South Main. “The one dude who is really responsible for my cooking career was my head chef, Carl White, but everybody calls him ‘C.J.’ I was washing dishes one day and he just says, ‘Hey, man. You want to learn how to cook?’
“The first thing he told me was, ‘You see this steak? Pick it up. Put a little oil on it. And salt and pepper the shit out of it. Throw it on the grill.’ Once he threw it on the grill, it inspired me. The first time I stepped on that line, it just became natural.”
Whitley eventually moved to other restaurants until he and his “mentor/tutor,” Kristin Fox-Trautman, came up with the idea of Inspire Community Café. Fox-Trautman wanted them to create “something cool to give back to the community.”
They opened Inspire Community Café at 510 Tillman Street, Suite 110, in January 2019.
As for the name, Whitley says, “We wanted to inspire change.” The focus was on healthy food, so Whitley looked for “creative ways” to use healthier ingredients. “We don’t have a fryer and we don’t have a soda machine. And we use olive oil and vegetable stock in all our stuff.
“The menu came from Kristin just traveling around. She’d come back with all these ideas and I just went on and executed them. Like they went to Costa Rica and found out the way they do black beans.”
Popular Inspire items include the Costa Rican black bean, roasted sweet potato, and quinoa bowl; barbecue chicken quesadillas; and the Strawberry Field Salad with strawberries, candied pecans, feta cheese, and red onions. And everything is under $10.
For now, Whitley is just watching the restaurant grow. “I want it to be profitable. And I want it to be more of a staple in the Memphis community. I want to make sure when it’s all said and done, Inspire Community Café is a household name to the people of Memphis.”