Second Harvest

Had Asian and buffalo wings, green salad, assorted cookies and tea for $ 8. They have an express lunch buffet every Wednesday and the menu changes every week. Check it out online before going. Overall, a decent meal but make sure you get these early because they stop bringing out food around 12:30.

I volunteered to do some food-​sorting with my 14 year old. We had a very good experience. We will be back to do more. Here’s what I liked:
— They are very well organized. We registered to volunteer on-​line. It was quick and easy.
— When we arrived, we were greeted by a friendly associate who helped us sign in.
— She then showed us and the other volunteers what to do. It was easy, and actually kind of fun.
We processed several pallets of kids’ «back packs,» which are bags of non-​perishable foods that kids in need get to take home to eat over the weekend. (Some children do not get much, if any, food at home, and only get good meals at their schools.)
The facility was well laid out, safe, easy to find, and had plenty of parking. We will be back to do this again.

If you haven’t been to Second Harvest on Fridays for lunch, you are missing out.
Chef Mark Rubin (formerly of Belle Meade Brasserie before he sold that and went to work where his other passion was, at Second Harvest) leads a team of volunteers and folks learning the culinary trade from assistance programs and puts together interesting, fresh, healthy, and delicous meals that for a $ 12 donation you can enjoy each week. They also do an express lunch on Wednesdays and during warmer months on the second Tuesday of the month they host Food Truck Tuesdays — so there is a lot more going on at Second Harvest besides the amazing work of helping Nashville’s families in need with food assistance.
I’m Unilocaling my admiration for their work because I still think a lot of folks don’t know about their public programs like this besides having visited for years. Visit their website, go by some Friday, you’ll see and you’ll be impressed.
Ask to be added to the email list, and you’ll get a message each week telling you what the menus will be for Wednesday and Friday — to know which food trucks are there during FTT months, you need to visit their facebook or just go to the website.
You can go to other restaurants and get fancier dishes, a quieter dining room, servers without hair nets, and lots of other nice accompaniments — but visiting the Culinary Arts Center here will still be a highlight for you, I promise.

Second Harvest seems to be a great food distribution center. However I am reviewing the banquet room and catering staff.
I attended a wonderful party here last Friday evening. The grounds around the place are lovely, and everything looks nice inside and out! We entered and walked up a spiral staircase. The banquet room was down the hall, and it overlooked the warehouse. It was a nice room, and I thought it was cool to get to see the warehouse. I believe the banquet room is used as a fund raising tool for the warehouse, which is wonderful.
The room was nicely decorated, the table center pieces were pretty potted flowers in recycled food cans. I thought that was an awesome center piece (and I’m thinking about copying it for my upcoming wedding).
The bartenders were quick with the drink distribution. The food was all refilled as soon as it got low. The BBQ dishes were all tasty. But my favorite part of the meal was the berry cobbler. I love blueberry pie, but I am frequented extremely disappointed if the pie has canned filling. But I was not at all disappointed with this cobbler. The filling was fresh, and had a light lemon flavor to it. Even though I was really full, I still had seconds of the cobbler. Just thinking about it now makes me wish I had more!
This is a great place to host events!