Chef Steve McHugh’s Cured wins Texas Restaurant Neighbor Award
[From Left to Right: Chef Steve McHugh; Children gathered at Cured for a Cooking Class benefitting Share Our Strength; Cured’s Charcuterie Board]
A spirit of charity is fundamental to Cured’s being and its business; after barely a year on the San Antonio culinary scene, the restaurant is already regarded as a pillar of its community and industry. As a recent cancer survivor, chef-owner Steve McHugh has been deeply touched by the work of charities in his own journey of recovery, and in the spirit of giving back, he and his staff of sixty contribute significant hours and in-kind resources to local charitable events.
The signature giving program at Cured is tied to a popular centerpiece of its menu, the Charcuterie Board: for each of these ordered, Cured donates $1 to a single charity of its choice, a different one for each quarter of the year. McHugh, a pioneer of ‘gastro-giving,’ welcomes staff suggestions in choosing a given quarter’s beneficiary, and Cured actively develops other promotions and events to augment its donations.
The year-old restaurant now advances to compete with other state winners for the prestigious National Restaurant Neighbor Award honoring Outstanding Community Service Projects. A prize of $5,000 for charity will be awarded to the top four winners, along with a trip to the nation’s capital to be honored at an awards dinner. Cured is surely a strong contender, having raised over $16,000 in its very first year for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; Team Gleason for ALS support; Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry; and Susan G. Komen. Meanwhile, it is now focused on The American Red Cross, its designated Charcuterie Board charity for the first quarter of 2015.
That’s a lot of charcuterie, and that is the nature of Cured.