'Crown jewel' Beautiful Rainbow Cafe marks 7th year; director Chip Rowan looks to retire

Beautiful Rainbow Cafe was an idea that Chip Rowan, its director, had faith in. A set of circumstances helped it become reality seven years ago, and Rowan's faith proved prescient.

The restaurant, housed in the Gadsden Public Library, teaches functional and workplace skills to students with cognitive disabilities. It has become a mainstay in the community; “a crown jewel,” as Gadsden City Schools Superintendent Keith Blackwell described it, for the school system; and an award-winning model for work-based learning programs in Alabama and elsewhere.

“I anticipated every bit of this,” Rowan said, looking back. “I had thought this through quite a lot before we opened, and I was always convinced that it would be successful. I was always convinced that we'd be commercially successful and successful as an educational program, that it would accomplish what we intended. I don't know why, but I was always very confident that we would.”

Beautiful Rainbow marked its anniversary with a special buffet on Valentine's Day. The event featured some of the cafe's favorite offerings (Gourment Mac and Cheese, Gumbo Z'Herbes, fresh salad from its garden and Carrot Cake made with blood orange-infused olive oil and topped with caramel frosting), attracted a crowd of its supporters and even had music from members of Gadsden City High School's Symphonic Band.

It was a time for celebration, even as Rowan looks to retirement after two decades as a special education instructor in city schools. He plans to turn the program over to new leadership at the end of July and school system officials vow to keep it moving forward.

The program started in 2014 with a single garden bed at Litchfield Middle School, where Rowan was teaching. He said he was “frustrated with the traditional ways of doing things” and wanted to get more work-based instruction into the curriculum — such as how to grow fresh vegetables.

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“When we started getting food from the garden, we wanted to expand and turn it into a school-based enterprise,” he said. “We made salads and other things from the harvest of the garden, and sold the to teachers.”

Even at that point, Rowan was thinking about a restaurant, so he attended a Food Institute conference at Auburn University to pick up some pointers, including how to establish a social media presence. Facebook posts helped the students sell peanut butter and dark chocolate truffles after they were added to the “menu” at holidays.

In 2015, Rowan applied for and received a grant from the state Department of Education to establish the Gadsden City system's first summer program for students with disabilities. It helped with setting up a commercial kitchen space and expanding the garden beds at Litchfield.

High school students participated in the program, and Rowan continued to use food in the curriculum. “We taught food safety, ServSafe, gardening and cooking,” he said. “We'd have a different theme each week — eggs, cheese, tomatoes — and would make all these different dishes.”

Then community VIPs — community, government and religious leaders, plus social clubs — would be invited to come sample those dishes on Thursdays “to get our name known,” Rowan recalled.

The operation was so successful that the grant was extended through 2016, and the students began taking on catering assignments for local events, along with continuing the VIP lunches.

Amanda Jackson, the Gadsden Public Library's former director, attended one of those VIP lunches that year, and later reached out to Rowan.

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“She said, 'I'd like to do more with you, I love what you're doing,' ” he said. “She had space in the library at that time that was used for storage, not open to the public, and asked me to come look at it. She asked if I'd like to have a little bake shop, I said that all along I wanted to do a restaurant, so she said (I could) do what I wanted with the space.”

Assistant Gadsden City Superintendent Sharon Maness was the system's special education director at the time. “Chip came to me and said, 'I want to open up a cafe,' and I thought, 'There's no way we're going to sell this program,' ” she recalled.

But Maness said she also recognized “the love and passion” Rowan had for his students. “He said, 'Listen, I promise you that we're going to make this work,'” she said. “So he and I sat down together with Tammy McDuffie (longtime special education instructor in the system) and a few of the other staff, he described the opportunity that Amanda Jackson had provided the school system to partner with the city, so we said, 'Let's do it.'”

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Rowan got a grant from the Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama to help renovate the space, and the Gadsden Rotary Club purchased appliances. It took throughout the balance of 2016 to set the cafe and the menu up, and the doors opened to diners on Valentine's Day 2017.

Beautiful Rainbow's vegetarian and garden-to-table lunch fare quickly gained a following, and its educational component has been equally successful and impressive.

Rowan estimated that 100 students have come through the program; 46 of them have been placed in jobs through its direct efforts, while others have gained employment on their own.

Two students were accepted into university programs: Chris Underwood in Auburn's EAGLES and Isaiah McFarlin in Alabama's CrossingPoints.

Rowan, who has taught at Gadsden City High in recent years, credits two elements for Beautiful Rainbow's success: the expectations that are placed on its students and community support.

“We have high expectations and I think that's why we get the performance we do,” he said. “We want excellence and the students respond to that, when they haven't had those kinds of expectations before.

“I'm very proud of how Gadsden has embraced this program, these students and what we're doing here,” he said. “It's just been great. It's proved that people with disabilities have many abilities that we need to develop and need to be proud of. I'm happy about the visibility that we've given our students.”

In 2022, Beautiful Rainbow received the Governor’s Seal of Excellence as Alabama's Best K-12 Work-Based Learning Program, something Rowan called “the pinnacle of recognition we've received.”

The cafe also was the subject of a 2019 documentary that premiered at Birmingham's Sidewalk Film Festival.

Gadsden City Superintendent Keith Blackwell said Beautiful Rainbow “goes to our whole thought process of doing everything we can for every student we have, across the board. It's shone a light on Gadsden, it's shone a light on our school system.”

Blackwell said it's wonderful to “see students thriving, see them having something they can get involved in and go farther in the workforce. It's a great program that others are trying to match. We've set the tone for programs like this, and we're thankful for Chip and his vision.”

Maness noted that Rowan has done training videos with the state Department of Education “to help them be able to utilize some of these strategies to help other districts, so they know that kids with disabilities don't have to sit at home, there are opportunities in the community for them.”

After July, however, Rowan will be ending what he described as “a great chapter in my life.” He expressed confidence that the school system he said is “very proud and very supportive” of the program will keep making those opportunities available.

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“Whoever comes along (as the new director) will make it their program, as it should be,” said Rowan, who once practiced law in Atlanta, focusing on issues connected with the disabled. “Am I ready to move into another chapter? Yes,” he said. “Am I always going to remember this and think about the students? They'll always be a part of me.

“We're not just running a business here, it's like a family,” he added. “I stay in touch with students, am still very involved in their lives, making sure they're productive and happy as they can be. If they have problems, they come to us. It's really just a very rich life.”

Mayor Craig Ford said Rowan and the team at Gadsden City High ”have built something amazing with Beautiful Rainbow. It’s an amazing partnership with the schools, the city, and the community to teach at-risk students useful life and work skills that help them live better lives in adulthood.

“As a mayor, I consider Gadsden lucky to have such innovative leaders in our community and education system. We will definitely miss Chip in Gadsden, but hope to see the spirit and impact of Beautiful Rainbow Cafe live on with full-steam ahead.”

Maness said keeping Beautiful Rainbow going and providing the students the same quality of education it's offered for seven years “is a priority.” She said she's asked Rowan to stay on the program's board “so we can make sure we're staying in the right direction,” and he said Maness “is a difficult person to say no to.”

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Beautiful Rainbow Cafe marks seven years; director plans to retire