Black Sheep Brick Oven Bakery & Catering
Jackhorn
Have a hankering for authentic brick-oven pizza and a scenic drive? Head to Letcher County, where the Hemphill Community Center plays host to Black Sheep Brick Oven Bakery and Catering. On Thursday and Friday evenings and all day on Saturdays, the 700-degree brick oven puts the perfect crunchy-chewy crust on pizzas, calzones and artisan-style bread. A fan favorite is the Pig ’n Pepper Sticks—bacon and banana pepper-topped cheese sticks with marinara on the side. Then there are the cinnamon rolls: While manager and lifelong resident Gwen Johnson won’t reveal the house-secret recipe, she guarantees feathery light pastry, a generous shmear of cinnamon and brown sugar, and sweet icing with a citrusy zing.
This small-town operation has social enterprise baked in. Part of the motivation for opening Black Sheep in 2018 was to support the work of the Hemphill Community Center, which was struggling from the loss of funding from coal severance taxes. Each purchase supports the center’s decades-long work as a gathering place for friends and neighbors and a home for nurturing cultural traditions such as music, dance, crafts and cooking. “There is nothing cheaper than flour, salt and water, so we decided to try our hand at having a bakery,” Johnson said. “Traditional bread-making knowledge was lost when the coal companies came.
MALCOLM J. WILSON
The decline of coal work has caused an out-migration of laid-off miners who couldn’t find local employment. At the same time, Johnson had a nephew soon to be released from jail who, because of his record, had little hope of getting a job. The founders of Black Sheep decided to intentionally hire folks who needed a fresh start. “This addiction thing is a disease, and it’s a monster. We have had a real brain drain into jails,” Johnson said. “Opioids robbed a lot of people of their good standing in the community and their human potential.”
For some, employment at Black Sheep is just the boost they need to get their lives back on track. Several of the part-time employees have taken the skills and positive work reference they have gained at the bakery and gone on to full-time employment elsewhere. “This is sometimes a transitional job, and we don’t hinder them when they get ready to fly,” Johnson said.
Every Saturday night, the Black Sheep Bakery stage thrums with local live music. It is open on holiday mornings, so local folks can pick up pre-ordered fresh bread and desserts for family celebrations. Those sweet treats include triple-berry scones, cream horns and Mamaw Mable’s signature dessert pizza, with butterscotch, sliced apples, and walnuts drizzled with icing.
Black sheep are known for being different—for standing out—and Black Sheep Bakery lives up to its name. In February, it hosted the first LGBTQ+ art collaborative in the area. “It was pretty joyful,” Johnson said. “We’ve worked really hard to make a free space where everyone can fit in.”
Black Sheep Brick Oven Bakery
2514 Ky. 317, Suite 2, Jackhorn
971.867.4337
blacksheepbrickoven.org/hemphill-community-center
Dv8 Kitchen
Lexington
Diners in Lexington desiring a made-from-scratch breakfast or lunch should head to one of DV8 Kitchen’s two locations, both open seven days a week. Co-owner Rob Perez said DV8 makes 95 percent of everything it serves, including light and flaky Southern biscuits, an assortment of jams and jellies, and sauces and dressings.
Its Breakfast Reuben is an interesting spin on the usual sandwich. Corned beef, potatoes, bell peppers, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut hash are topped with Russian dressing and a poached egg. The Southern Eggs Benedict consists of a poached egg, ham, fried green tomatoes, and hollandaise on a biscuit.
The menu pairs DV8’s freshly baked brioche sandwich buns with the humbly named Best Burger in Town, topped with an egg, cheddar cheese, bacon, caramelized onions, and Dijonnaise sauce. The Orange Marmalade Chicken Sandwich—with fried chicken tenders and honey butter—satisfies those with a not-too-sweet tooth.
“It is a chef’s approach to really simple food,” Perez said. “Once you have ham and apple butter on a fresh Southern biscuit, it is kind of life-changing.”
The eatery’s offerings led to it quickly becoming a favorite among diners. In 2021, DV8 was the only Kentucky restaurant to appear on Yelp’s Top 100 Brunch Spots in the U.S., coming in at No. 40.
The food is not the only aspect of DV8 Kitchen that is life changing. Since its founding in 2017, the enterprise has offered second-chance employment to those in the early stages of addiction recovery. DV8 leverages a job to keep people sober as they learn to deviate from their past lives.
The restaurant was the brainchild of Perez’s wife, Diane Perez. Together, the couple owned three restaurants and had 35 years of experience in the industry. But it was Diane’s experience helping Rob through recovery when he was 25 that made them uniquely qualified to launch a business offering second-chance employment. Rob’s first reaction? “I thought it was the dumbest idea I ever heard,” he said.
He came around.
“We want to change the minds of customers so they think about hiring someone in a second-chance position,” Rob said. “The restaurant is emblematic of successful recovery and full of life and hope.”
At the time DV8 opened, second-chance employment was a relatively new idea. The establishment has since shared the lessons it has learned with other businesses through Soulfull Enterprises, a training and mentorship opportunity designed to make this kind of employment approachable for other business owners. “Twenty percent of people are in need of a second-chance position,” Perez said. “We talk about the virtues of second-chance hiring, mitigating risk, and how to manage less transactionally and more relationally.”
The community has rallied around this mission and in ways beyond dining. Medical professionals volunteer to host weekly wellness workshops for the staff. Donors have given seven cars to staff in need of transportation. Thanks to community donations, DV8 opened its second location in September 2021 with a full-size commercial bakery to grow its wholesale business.
“People see others working hard at deviating from their pasts and feel led to assist,” Perez said. “It is pretty beautiful.”
DV8 Kitchen
867 South Broadway, Suite 140, Lexington
859.955.0388
594 East Third Street, Suite 100, Lexington
859.832.0388
Lee Initiative
Louisville
In the height of the Me Too movement five years ago, Chef Edward Lee looked with a critical eye at the restaurant industry to which he had devoted his life. Unjust and discriminatory practices were coming to light. Lee was inspired to do something beyond lip service or tokenism.
“We wanted to make a long-lasting commitment to a program that would show the way forward,” Lee said. “It was important to start in Louisville, where there is a need for more women in leadership in the restaurant industry.”
That birthed the nonprofit Lee Initiative and its six-month leadership development program for female chefs and bartenders. With superstar mentors like Kentucky chef Ouita Michel, the initiative has impacted 25 Kentuckians who have moved into their dream careers at places like the Food Network and Maker’s Mark Distillery.
“They already had the talent and skills,” Lee said. “The program is about instilling culture and sparking a confidence that shows a pathway to leadership. Their careers have soared.”
The ultimate goal of the initiative is to make the restaurant industry more equitable, diverse and kind. What he preaches at the nonprofit, Lee implements at his flagship restaurant, 610 Magnolia. Women are in leadership roles in both the back and front of house, and they are creating equitable policies for all staff.
Conventional wisdom states that staff need to leave their problems at the front door when they arrive at work. Lee noted that mode of thinking doesn’t work anymore, especially during COVID. “I am proud of the fact that, when we reopened, we did not have a single staff member not return to work,” he said. “We are a close unit, and people feel valued as part of our team.”
The fledgling nonprofit is a bit of an anomaly, as all of the staff have a restaurant, not a nonprofit, background. It is nimble and adjusts its outreach every six months based on what is happening in the world. In the last couple of years, the nonprofit has fed those in Kentucky impacted by the pandemic and other tragedies.
The initiative is still on the ground in western Kentucky serving people whose lives were torn asunder by the December 2021 tornadoes. Initiative representatives arrived three days after the storms and have made at least a six-month commitment to the region. “It is not our main focus, but when it hits close to home, we can mobilize pretty quickly,” Lee said.
The website at leeinitiative.org details the nonprofit’s current projects and includes ways for interested people to donate and volunteer. Lee hopes readers will help spread the word about the need for more compassion and fairness in the restaurant culture.
“For me personally, I want to make sure when I retire that I leave the industry in a better place than when I found it,” he said. “If we can inspire hundreds of people to do their part, that can start a movement.”