Dan Cellucci is passionate about food. His Roots Cafe is well-known for serving up a delicious menu of classic dishes with a focus on utilizing local, sustainable ingredients. That passion is also evident in his music club, Sprout Music Collective, where handcrafted cocktails, local beer and wine and a tapas-style menu are presented alongside local musical talent.
But Dan knows that quality ingredients don’t just come from the market or get delivered to his restaurants’ doorsteps by happenstance. He likes to get his hands dirty in the garden, too. Dan also understands that a sustainable food source is pivotal to the success of a community, so he has helped create a garden, located at West Chester’s Charles A. Melton Arts and Education Center.
The Melton Center Community Garden came to life after a successful Kickstarter campaign that saw 80 backers donate almost $12,000 in just a few short days. With the additional help of local businesses like Vegetable Gardens R Us, The Fence Authority and Full Circle CSA, Dan’s vision of a community garden has become a reality.
I spoke with Dan about the garden and how he hopes it can help the greater West Chester community now and in the future.
West Chester Dish: Why did you want to start a community garden?
Dan Cellucci: I think it’s really important for there to be more gardens in open spaces. Many people just spray their weeds with pesticides and coat their lawns with other chemicals rather than use the land to grow usable plants and food. Also, a community garden is a place people can come together with a single focus and mutual benefit in order to strengthen the community we live in.
How have you collaborated with the Melton Center and other community partners to bring The Melton Center Community Garden to life?
The Melton Center owns the land and gave us the OK to basically do whatever we needed to get the garden up and growing. John from The Fence Authority and Jamie from Gardens R Us were a huge help in the project. Also, we collaborated with the guys from Organic Mechanics Soil Company.
What are you currently growing in the garden?
We have eggplants, Swiss chard, kale, collards, cabbage, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, hot peppers and carrots right now.
How are you incorporating the herbs and vegetables that you grow into dishes at Roots Cafe?
We have our own veggie garden at Roots that we primarily utilize in our cooking. But, we have been using some kale and tomatoes from the Community Garden in some of our dishes at Roots.
What happens to all the extra produce that you don’t use?
The Community Garden will mainly be a donation garden. The extra produce is donated to the West Chester Food Cupboard to feed some of the food insecure residents of the local community.
We are hoping to use the garden as a teaching vehicle, too. We hope to show the kids at The Melton Center how to pick and maintain the garden and then how to cook the produce that has been grown. Just teaching fun, everyday, important life skills like growing and cooking can be overlooked in school. We want to make sure we do our best to educate and make the kids aware of the circle of food from growing it, to harvesting it, to serving it on the plate.
How can others in the community get involved?
Right now people can message Roots or Sprout Music Collective on Facebook and just ask how to volunteer. Then we can start a dialogue online and figure out the next steps.
Find Roots Cafe at 133 E. Gay St. in West Chester; phone: (610) 455-0100. Find Sprout Music Collective at 130 E Prescott Alley in West Chester; phone: (610) 696-6006.
Photo of Dan Cellucci: Mary Bigham; remaining photos: Melton Center Community Garden
