ADAMS — Xavier Jones is coming again to Adams, this time to start out a restaurant at Park Street’s historic Firehouse Cafe.
People may don’t forget the 38-yr-outdated chef from BiggDaddy’s Philly Steak Dwelling, which Jones owned and operated in Adams from 2017 to 2018 and in Pittsfield from 2018 to 2019.
Now, he is returning, alongside business enterprise husband or wife Warren Dews Jr., to check out some thing new: a Mediterranean-infused compact plates cafe with a menu that will reflect the cuisines of up to 30 international locations.
“This constructing is a landmark, and we really do not want to be just a restaurant — we want to be a vacation spot,” Jones claimed. “People go to Lenox for wonderful foodstuff. People go to Williamstown for foods. We want people today to go to Adams and know they can get the same top quality of foods, even improved.”
Jones and Dews, who co-own the company, hope to start running in April and are wanting to employ the service of staff, they reported. They will host interviews for a sous chef, line cooks, servers, bartenders, hosts and food items runners at the cafe on Feb. 11-12.
The restaurant will provide supper from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday via Sunday.
“We’re likely to provide meals from Asia to Europe to Northern Africa,” Jones stated. “We’ll also be throwing some American, New England delicacies in there. We’ll be throwing some Caribbean delicacies in there. We’ll be taking food items from all around the planet and presenting it in a Mediterranean style.”
Dews, a businessman and publisher of the Greenville Pioneer and Ravena Information-Herald newspapers in the Money Location, has a simple rationalization for why he required to be a portion of the cafe: “It’s Xavier.”
Jones, a Philadelphia native, properly trained at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Pittsburgh. He moved to the Berkshires in the early 2000s and has worked as a chef in best-degree positions at The Pink Lion Inn in Stockbridge and Spice in Pittsfield, among other eating places.
When persons spot him in malls and retailers, Jones explained, they typically mention BiggDaddy’s and his cheesesteaks. BiggDaddy’s supporters will be happy to listen to that Jones has not cooked his last cheesesteak in the Berkshires.
“Maybe Tuesday night time or at the time a thirty day period will be cheesesteak night, where we serve the cheesesteaks that Adams remembers,” Jones claimed. “That’s what they know me for. … So, we’ll let the city remember those people good aged days.”
Adams Pick Board members expressed enthusiasm for Jones’ return as they authorized a liquor license for the cafe previous week”.
Member Richard Blanchard joked that he was upset with Jones for the reason that he “had to come across somewhere else to go eat” just after BiggDaddy’s closed. Member Joe Nowak added that he finds it “exciting to have that type of foods scene here in Adams” soon after listening to Jones describe the menu.
“Living below my entire existence, I don’t bear in mind nearly anything fairly like that,” Nowak reported.
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Jones claimed he kept in speak to with Invoice Kolis, who owns the 47 Park St. creating, immediately after doing the job with Kolis for some functions at the cafe about 2017. They started talking about the chance of a new restaurant soon right before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Dews and Jones really feel that they are coming to Adams at the proper time and in the right spot.
The firehouse, which was included to the National Register of Historic Destinations in 1982, initially housed the Warn Hose Co., Adams volunteer fire division, and afterwards housed an ambulance support just before its conversion to professional use for eating places.
Progress on the Greylock Glen, the prospect of a reopened Adams Theater and other the latest developments led Dews to believe that “this is likely to be the place wherever people today are likely to appear to from all around.”
“We want Adams to be the new Fantastic Barrington,” Dews said.
Jones has strategies to workforce up with nearby artists to hang do the job inside the restaurant and to use products and solutions from nearby farms, he explained. He envisions that the making would continue to be offered for the town to use for conferences and events.
“Adams has acquired a lot of wonderful issues going on with the theater opening up, with the Glen, and we want to be a portion of that, specially with the rail path and the amount of money of persons that Adams is bringing in,” Jones additional. “We want to capture that wave and be a portion of that achievement. It’s the prime time, excellent option, ideal area in Adams to be.”
Dews, a member of the Berkshire Black Economic Council, added that the pair “want to be a aspect of this advancement of Black businesses” in the Berkshires.
“The Berkshires are a gorgeous place,” Dews reported. “Both of us really like this location, and we want Black-owned businesses to endure and do perfectly here for the reason that it is heading to assist all of the Berkshires. You’ll see young people today of colour see opportunities to do properly in this put.”