Purpose Restaurants give 3% of sales to neighbors in need
May 23, 2022
On May 6, Brian and Sarah Ingram celebrated the opening of the Apostle Supper Club, a 5,000-squre-foot, 250-seat venue atop the Radisson Hotel Duluth-Harborview. The rotating restaurant provides a 360-degree view of downtown Duluth, Minn., and Lake Superior.
With décor inspired by the 1960s, Apostle also features food from that era, such as cheese fondue, deviled eggs and Caesar salad. There’s also chicken fried lobster with beurre blanc, mac & cheese with popcorn rather than breadcrumbs, and the two-pound shareable Yabba Dabba Doo beef rib plate. Jell-O cake and banana wafer pudding are true blasts from the past, while vintage cocktails such as the Tom Collins and Grasshopper are on the drinks list beside build-your-own Martinis, beer and wine.
He anticipates an average per-person check of around $42
Brian Ingram said the goal is to transport customers to a different place from the moment they enter the restaurant.
“My brother-in-law, Eric Drommerhausen, designs all our restaurants,” he said. “We both love the look and feel of Palm Springs. And I had wanted to do a bright, vibrant 1960s supper club for years, with food that lives up to the décor.”
It will be joined by False Eye Doll Lounge, which will combine sports themes with traditional tiki lounge décor, on the Radisson’s first floor.
Apostle is the latest restaurant concept operating under the umbrella of the Ingrams’ Purpose Restaurants group. Through its not-for-profit arm, Give Hope, they donate 3% of sales to neighbors in need.
“We started our NFP in the middle of the pandemic when companies wanted to donate [food] to our organization,” Ingram said. “We wanted to create charitable restaurants with normal paying customers who know we support the community, too.”
Since it was founded in 2019, Give Hope has donated more than 300,000 free meals, two million pounds of food, and $225,000 in relief grants to local families. It has fed health-care professionals, protesters, unemployed people and restaurant workers at no charge. Ingram said Purpose Restaurants was founded to simultaneously operate successful restaurants and alleviate food access issues.
“We are Christians first,” he said.
“Our first goal was to create safe and inclusive workplaces, from LGBTQ [individuals] to people battling addiction.” Ingram said. “We do not allow employees [including Sarah and me] to drink in any of our restaurants. We also provide living wages — our average line cook makes $50,000 per year. And we want managers to feel like they have a good work/life balance.”
Brian Ingram has spent more than three decades in the restaurant industry. He was a senior member of several large hospitality groups, including MGM Resorts International, Brinker International, Restaurants Unlimited, and the Alain Ducasse group. He went on to operate the New Bohemia Wurst & BierHaus concept from 2012 to 2017, as well as Seventh Street Truck Park in St. Paul.
Apart from Apostle, the Ingrams also operate the Gnome Craft Pub in St. Paul, which has offered local seasonal fare and draft microbrews since 2020, and Hope Breakfast Bar, with one location in St. Paul’s oldest firehouse, another in the city’s St. Louis Park and a smaller Hope Express at Gillette Children's Hospital. Hope specializes in sweet cake batter pancakes with local syrup blended with complementary ingredients. It also serves large breakfast sandwiches and chicken & waffles.
A franchised unit of Hope is slated to open in Florida in July, and franchises in St. Louis and Las Vegas are also in the works.
“We will hand-pick families and teach them how to run a restaurant and the business of it,” Ingram said.
A second Apostle Supper Club is under construction in Saint Paul. It will be much larger than the Duluth location: Eight thousand square feet and 700 seats with a giant sunken living room and an acre patio.
Ingram said that the restaurants’ charitable focus will continue. In fact, he said restaurants and community go hand-in-hand.
“We’re called on to feed people, and we think that coming together over a meal is one of the most important things that we all do,” he said.
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