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Café receives Government support
March 2008
The Beef Kitchen has been awarded a grant of £111,000 from the Department of Communities and Local Government to open its Pryors Bank Café initiative by Putney Bridge.
The Beef Kitchen was established in 2005 by former homeless ex-Servicemen who are residents at the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation in Fulham. Providing a superior catering service to football fans on the Foundation's grounds adjacent to Chelsea FC's Stamford Bridge, the Beef Kitchen has now fed some 20,000 football fans and provided training and work experience to 25 former homeless ex-Servicemen.
Based on this model, the Beef Kitchen has been offered the opportunity by All Saints Church, Fulham to open a commercially viable restaurant, Pryors Bank Café, on premises they lease. The café will be managed and staffed as a commercial venture with up to two ex-Service apprentices being trained at any one time, securing the transferable skills and knowledge to overcome barriers to employment that many ex-Service personnel face.
The café will be a supported collaboration between the Beef Kitchen, the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, The Royal British Legion and Training for Life, a charity that manages training and back to work programmes for a variety of socially excluded client groups. Pryors Bank Café will open as a commercially viable outfit in June 2008.
Rick Brunwin, Chief Executive of the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, said: "the Beef Kitchen has been fantastically successful at helping former homeless Veterans rebuild their lives through regaining the self esteem and work ethic that was so much a part of their Service experience. The Places of Change grant gives them the opportunity to expand this social enterprise and thereby offer greater opportunities to train and employ Veterans who are experiencing such difficult times."
Bob Barrett, co-founder of the Beef Kitchen and Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation tenant said: "The Beef Kitchen has provided us with hope; hope that life can improve and hope that a positive future for Veterans can be achieved. Our aim now is that we can match the support from Places of Change and our other partners with a positive outcome that will see Pryors Bank become a great café that gives the an opportunity to other Veterans who have fallen on hard times."
For additional information please contact Katie Truss on 020 7381 7488 / katie.truss@oswaldstoll.org.uk.