Great NH Restaurants Keeps Workers Employed — By Helping Others

BEDFORD, NH — One restaurant chain in New Hampshire is finding a way to keep its employees working while also helping others during the new coronavirus pandemic and economic collapse.

Great NH Restaurants, which owns and operates a number of eateries and a catering operation in the state, has redeployed some of its workforce deliver meals to families in need and also feed first responders and others. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation contributed $50,000 to Families in Transition-New Horizons to sponsor a relief meal delivery project which the company and others began working to support.

The project is providing 1,200 meals to Manchester residents including at New Horizons, Varney Street Apartments, The Family Place and Resource Center, Men’s Transitional Living Program and Women’s Transitional Living Program. The donation and the work is keeping eight employees busy and hundreds fed — a big win for all involved.

"Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation shares many of our cultures core values here at Great NH Restaurants," said Tom Boucher, the CEO of Great NH Restaurants. "When they reached out to Families in Transition-New Horizons with this opportunity, we quickly put a plan in place for another great community project."

Great NH Restaurants also recently partnered with Tito's Handmade Vodka for its Tito's Feed Our Friends Program, an effort to provide community members, local heroes, and those in need with hot meals. CJ’s Great West Grill offered meals to the Manchester Police Department Officers recently, as a thank you, Boucher said, "for their endless and much appreciated work in the Queen City."

Thanks to Tito’s Handmade Vodka, this program helps kept restaurants busy, employees in their jobs, and also that chance to thank members of the community, he said.

Dozens of restaurants throughout the state have also stepped up to assist, feed, support, and show genuine hospitality during this incredibly difficult time in the restaurant industry, Boucher said.

"Through acts of kindness, partnerships, and from the smallest to the biggest heartfelt gestures, it's another clear example of how the hospitality industry has tremendous positive impact on our community and state," said Chef Nicole Barreira, director of Marketing and Menu Development for Great NH Restaurants. "Not only because we enjoy serving those who have helped serve us, but because giving back is in our hearts and minds and it’s at the very core of hospitality."

Great NH Restaurants operates T-BONES Great American Eatery in Bedford, Derry, Hudson, Laconia, and Salem. A Concord location is also in the process of being built at the new Tru Hotel on South Main Street. The eatery group also operates CJ’s Great West Grill in Manchester, Cactus Jack's in Laconia, and Copper Door Restaurants in Bedford and Salem, as well as the catering operation in Manchester. Many of the locations are serving takeout orders during the COVID-19 epidemic.

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