Folks gathered in one of the Durham Convention Center‘s ballrooms to taste soups from Durham restaurants, including Bleu Olive Mediterranean Bistro, Saladelia Café, Six Plates Wine Bar, Watts Grocery, Saltbox Seafood Joint, Beyu Caffe, Bull City Burger & Brewery, Foster’s Market, Guglhupf, Mad Hatter’s Cafe & Bakeshop, Pizzeria Toro, Mattie B’s, Toast and Pompieri Pizza during Urban Ministries of Durham‘s annual Empty Bowls fundraiser. The Judges’ Choice award went to Saltbox’s “Soup Dreams” Chowda and Toast‘s Calabrian Onion Soup won the People’s Choice award. More than 1,000 people and 200 volunteers were at the event, which raised $86,000 for the nonprofit. UMD serves over 241,000 meals and offers shelter to 6,000 people in need each year. Last year alone, the organization ended homelessness for 289 people.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Watts Grocery Chef Amy Tornquist, her husband, Jeremy, and daughter Katie serve up two choices of soups: beef chili and creamy mushroom
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Toast‘s John Rendel and Kelli Cotter.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
UMD Volunteer Tiffany Breindel assists Mattie Beason of Six Plates Wine Bar as he serves up his rosemary butternut squash bisque.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Pizzeria Toro‘s Connor Dore joins in as Wool E. Bull dances for his supper (he doesn’t sing … or talk).
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Saltbox Chef Ricky Moore explains the ingredients in his Chowda soup.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Volunteer Mike Fondren and Mattie B‘s Chef John Eisensmith.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Urban Ministries of Durham‘s Executive Director Patrice Nelson and UMD Board Chair Susan Olive.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Matt and Tracey Smith.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Soup judges (back row) Aaron Mendel of Clarion Content, event emcees Tracey and Matthew Coppedge, Monique Velasquez and Piper Kessler; (front row) Bob Walters of TriangleLife.tv, Anthony Wilson of ABC11, Victoria Bouloubasis of Indy Week and Durham Art Guild‘s Katie Seiz.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Chris Frederick and Feraud Calixte.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Ginna Purrington and Ismail Abdelkhalek show off the hand-crafted bowls they selected from more than 800 bowls created by local artisans.
Ninth Annual Empty Bowls
Bleu Olive Chef Sam Papanikas serves up his cauliflower and celery root vichyssoise.
