A Houston Chef Shares the Personal Impact of Helping His Community
Oprah Daily is partnering with Talenti Gelato on a new series, “Cooks for a Cause: Making the World a Better Place One Meal at a Time,” to showcase chefs who have made it part of their business plan to positively impact their hometowns. Houston’s Chris Williams is one such culinary creator raising the bar on community service through meal programs, voter drives and urban farms.
When Oprah quoted the late Martin Luther King asking, “How do I use who I am and what I have in service to something greater?” during her “The Life You Want” class on service in which Chef Chris Williams participated, the famed Houston restaurateur couldn’t help but think of his great grandmother, Lucille B. Smith.
A culinary trailblazer, Smith was the person who, Williams says, “gave [him and others] the blueprint” to use “mastery of one thing to improve things for their families and better serve their communities.” Which is exactly what Oprah meant when she suggested that people ask themselves the important question, “How do I use who I am and what I have in service to something greater?”
One of the ways Smith—who was also a woman business owner in the Lone Star State, a cookbook author, and the inventor of America’s first instant hot roll mix—did that was by opening her door to visiting Black VIPs and activists often unwelcome at Texas hotels and restaurants because of their race, including the aforementioned Dr. King.
Chris has followed in her community-oriented footsteps. He not only named his acclaimed Houston restaurant Lucille’s in her honor, but also extended the moniker to the establishment’s nonprofit arm, Lucille’s 1913. One of the first groups the nonprofit provided nourishment to was the elderly in underserved and historically Black Houston neighborhoods including Third Ward, First Ward and Sunnyside. Williams and his kitchen team started that meal delivery program during the pandemic and have since delivered more than 510,000 meals to those neighborhoods, as well as to school children and first responders at nearby hospitals.
Explaining why he chose to begin his program with Houston seniors, Williams said, “we want them to be recognized because we see so many food programs that don’t really offer up the dignity to these people that are in need and deserve to be served. These are our elders. They served us. They changed the world for us already.”
He went on to explain his own philosophy, and how it drives his nonprofit. “The theme behind our approach to service is about going out to the communities that aren’t … I wouldn’t say forgotten because you have to be considered to be forgotten,” he said. “These are places that aren’t typically considered.”
Tune in here for more discussions on service and to see how, as Dr. King said, “Everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.”
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