Mostly Cloudy The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Rich Chey moved nimbly around his restaurant’s kitchen.
He splashed a little olive oil in a pan, added a few red onions to saute. Then some Italian sausage and sauce. Within minutes he’d combined a scoop of pasta and garnished the finished product with bread crumbs and parsley. “You can make that at home in three minutes,” he said, plating the entree, arrabiata pasta. The demonstration at Stella, one of the eateries in Chey’s restaurant empire, HomeGrown Concepts, is a snapshot of his food philosophy. Fresh ingredients+simple recipes = meals diners will come back for. But for the upstate New Yorker who moved to Atlanta in 1991, feeding his adopted city doesn’t just mean putting food on a plate. Over the years, Chey has organized philanthropic dining events that have benefited local fire stations, charity outfits such as YouthPride, and storm victims from the Asian tsunami and the tornado in Cabbagetown, enlisting his counterparts at other restaurants to participate. Such efforts were honored recently with a 2008 Restaurant Neighbor Award by the Georgia Restaurant Association.
Most recently, Chey masterminded the Jan. 28 Dine-Out to benefit the CrimeStoppers fund offering a reward for information in the fatal shooting of Grant Park bartender John Henderson in early January.