Successful restaurateur who was once homeless serves up free meals
Who can relate to tough times better than someone who’s been there, done that?
Early in their relationship, Robert Yarbrough and his wife, Leah, found themselves homeless after they lost everything in a real estate deal that went south.
“We slept in a garage. We used pool areas for showering and bathrooms,” he recalled. Then, once they landed a small apartment, they went for a year without television.
They pulled through the struggle and Yarbrough went on to open RV’s Home of the Hoagy restaurants in Oswego and Plainfield. His wife owns Laxamana Bake Shoppe in Naperville.
The eatery is his take on the original Home of the Hoagy that his uncle and grandfather opened 60 years ago in Chicago’s Morgan Park neighborhood.
These days, Yarbrough said his business is doing well and he’s poised to open a third location in Olympia Fields next spring.
But he hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be on the flipside of the financial equation. And, unlike some people who don’t seem to notice the homeless, Yarbrough has a heightened awareness of pockets of despair.
He sees the homelessness in the western suburbs, he says, people living in garbage corrals, begging on the streets and eking out an existence in a tent city not far from one of his restaurants.
Though he’s often tried to help by hiring people who were homeless or giving away freebies, last year he decided it was time to do something big.
A lot of places give away turkeys, hams and bags of food during the holidays, he said. And, he suspects, some people on the receiving end of a gifted holiday bird probably don’t need it.
“The people who really need food, the homeless people out in the cold, can’t do anything with a frozen turkey or a frozen ham,” he said.
So, one day in fall 2020, as the pandemic raged and people began to retreat to the safety of their bubbles, Yarbrough decided to reach out and help those on of the fringe of society.
He shut down his Oswego restaurant for two days over Thanksgiving so that he, Leah and a group of volunteers could cook, dish and deliver hot meals to the people who need it most.
“We loaded up the backs of our SUVs and drove around Aurora, Oswego, Montgomery and just gave away food to people standing on the street,” he said.
“(My wife) enjoyed it so much that she said, ‘Let’s do it again.’ ”
This year, the couple, who have seven children, posted the giveaway on Facebook and people came in droves to get a quarter sheet pan filled with turkey and all the fixings.
Yarbrough also delivered 100 meals to Talented Tenth Social Services in Aurora.
Founder Natalie Bonner said that she’s known Yarbrough for about a year and was happy to partner with him for what her organization called “Neighborsgiving.”
Bonner said, “it makes a world of difference” to a homeless person to receive a cooked meal.
“How can they prepare a full meal with no home?” she said. “What Robert (Yarbrough) has helped us do is give a complete home-cooked meal prepared with love … showing people we care.”
People were also invited to come and pick up a meal, no questions asked.
“We said, ‘Come between 12 and 4,” Yarrough said. “We ran out by 2.”
They ended up giving away more than 250 pans of food.
“I personally cooked more than 26 turkeys, 15 to 20 pounds apiece,” Yarbrough said. Volunteers baked 12 pans of macaroni and cheese, seven pans of stuffing and a palate of green beans.
Sam’s Club and Costco donated beans, corn and other items. And the desserts were donated by Leah’s bakery.
Halfway through the giveaway, when it became apparent there was more demand than supply, Robert and Leah started to close the operation down.
“We hadn’t eaten all day but my wife had put aside a pan for us. As we were closing up, somebody came in and said they saw the notice on Facebook,” he said. “We ended up giving our food away and then went home and made hot dogs.”
He said they laughed about the turn of events.
“It was a lot of hard work. Everybody was sore the next day, but you know it was really good to do some good,” Yarbrough said. “Everything about this made sense. I’m so thankful that God put us in a position to help others.”
Now he’s gearing up for Christmas and another marathon of cooking and dishing out meals to those who would otherwise go hungry.
“It will be cool,” he said.
The Yarbroughs are looking for food donations and volunteers to help at the restaurant, located at 2420 US Highway 30, Oswego. To contact them, call 888-414-6249, Ext. 885, or go to www.homeofthehoagy.com.