By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

ALABASTER—Chubb’s Grub Station started out with a dream and an Easy-Bake oven, Owner of Alabaster’s popular and award-winning new restaurant Will Cholewinski said.

“I had a dream when I was a little kid,” Cholewinski explained. “The Lord told me it was going to be my job and my responsibility to feed the people.”

“Feed the people” has become the mantra and driving force behind the family owned business on 1st Street SW in Alabaster. Cholewinski estimated as many as 600 people eat at Chubb’s on any given Friday or Saturday night.

“This is a place where you sit down and be a family,” Cholewinski said of the atmosphere of the restaurant. “We don’t serve fast food. Everything is done from scratch. From a food standpoint, that’s why we’re so popular, we have really good food, and it’s done the right way.”

But Chubb’s does more than feed customers. The restaurant’s Feed the People program also provides food for the needy in the community.

Each time a customer comes into the restaurant with two non-perishable food items, they receive one free drink, and on the 15th trip, they’re awarded a free meal. At the end of the week, Cholewinski matches the number of items the community has donated and gives all of the gathered food to Manna Ministries.

Since opening in Oct. 2013, this program has generated nearly 2,000 meals for those who otherwise would not have food.

“What has been so amazing is the people who will drop off food and don’t want their free drink, they just want to make a difference,” Cholewinski said. “It shows the community grabbing hold of a concept and running with it. It gives me a lot of hope.”

Cholewinski has bigger plans for the Feed the People project. He is currently talking to other restaurants about starting up the program, including one in Alabaster and one in Bessemer. He also has a vision for expanding to create “care cafes” with food service job training programs.

“I want to get people back to taking care of people,” Cholewinski said. “We want to be influential, we want to be an example.”