Little Grill Collective

Salad being served at the Free Food For All Soup Kitchen in 2008

Copeland's initial contribution was a Free Food For All Soup Kitchen, which served hot, homemade noon meals at the diner without charge to "anyone in the world" every Monday from October 1992 on. This soup kitchen led to the long-term creation of Our Community Place[6] which now exists in a former Salvation Army building across the street.

When Copeland decided to sell the Grill, after feeling a religious calling to Christian seminary, individual employees he approached were not interested in buying. He considered some sort of group ownership, and began researching models found in The Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley, California and the Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain; key features of a collective being a vote for each owner, and share of profits apportioned according to labor input (not capital). In 2002, regular meetings began with Grill workers with an aim toward forming a worker-owned corporation—which would ultimately be called The Little Grill Cooperative. In June 2003, this new collective purchased the restaurant from Copeland, using what they called "community financing" to procure the down payment. Since then the collective aimed to work for localizing the food and creating what they regards as "a healthy work environment for a fulfilling job experience".[5]

View looking northward from across N. Main Street

The video The Little Grill[7] was created by JMU students in November 2008, describing how the Little Grill Collective began. A smartphone app launched September 2011 "allows users mobile access to the menu, blog updates and even trivia questions highlighting the eatery's history."[1]

On September 13, 2022, the worker-owners announced via a Facebook post that they could no longer continue operating in their current form and that they were "taking some time to take a hard and critical look at our business operations; and exploring potential evolutions of the Grill into a new entity."[8] Robert Driver, a musician who co-owned the diner in the 1980s, when asked what would happen if it closed for good said, “There would be profound sadness because if The Little Grill is to stop operating as that entity then that’s truly the end of an era in Harrisonburg."[9] He added:

A peaceable kingdom is a good way to describe that restaurant. People left a lot of animosities at the door and it really was a magical place. You know how many people met their wives there? One of my cooks even proposed to his future wife on the stage at the Little Grill. People have all kinds of memories of the place.

When then-owner Ron Copeland decided to attend graduate school, he knew he didn't want to see The Little Grill close as a result. Friends encouraged him to investigate worker-owned cooperatives such as Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley, California. Discovering mentorship and guidance there, Copeland and a half dozen others worked together to launch The Little Grill Collective in 2003. He says of the time:[12]

We met weekly for almost a year — I think it was ten months. And we would do it on Wednesday nights after work. Like at 11 o’clock at night we would meet. It was exciting. I looked at the notes from back then. Man, we were hard core.

Casa Nueva, a worker-owned collective restaurant in Athens, Ohio, hosted Grill working team members to support the launch.[12]

Not everyone who worked at the collective became an owner, but 9-12 of the employees usually signed on for the privilege at any one time.[12] Worker-owners of Little Grill Collective as of April 2015 (date joined cooperative in parentheses):[13]

A list of former worker-owners is maintained at the Little Grill webpage.[14]

The collective had survived almost two decades when it ceased operations in September 2022, with just five worker-owners lasting until then.[12]

Says Ron Copeland of why the restaurant didn't survive COVID-19 as a cooperative, "The challenge of a worker cooperative is there’s no equity. You work hard and you get your share of the profit but then when its time to go you don’t really get anything. It’s a cool thing for a lot of reasons but that’s one of the downsides."[12]

Ron and Melaine Copeland, who owned The Little Grill from 1992 to 2003 — before helping its employees convert it to a worker-owned collective[15] — have signed a lease on the building and intend to restart operations in 2023. Ron discovered The Little Grill, a "staple restaurant with an eighty-year pedigree", as a James Madison University student. He started working there in the mid-1980s, hiring as a dishwasher the woman who would later become his wife and mother of his children.[16]

He and Melaine married in 1994 while running the diner together. While dating Melaine, Ron wrote, “I love you,” in green paint over the salmon pink on the walls, encircling it with a heart (which is still visible today). He explains:[12]

Our relationship started here, our wedding party was here, all of our children have worked here. So for us personally we have a lot of deep connections to the place and when we were talking about it we thought about ‘Who are the best people we know who we love the most in the world?’ and we met them all at the Little Grill and it was like ’Wow we could meet more people like that.’

The Copelands wanted to ensure that one of Harrisonburg’s most-loved spots survived. “The Little Grill really is a treasure in the Harrisonburg community and we just wanted to see that perpetuate,” says Melaine. Adds Ron, “I didn’t want to drive by and see it not open or torn down or something and know that I could’ve done something, ya know. I just don’t know if I would’ve been able to really live with that.”[15]

The Copelands have now purchased the business back from the collective, but are dropping the worker-owned aspect of the business. Of the decision to re-purchase the business, Ron says, "We had great times at the Grill and just suddenly thought, we might . . be especially positioned to help navigate this situation and get the Grill back open."[18]

To finance start-up, the returning owners are selling “personal grill accounts” for $1,000 each which can be used to purchase meals and leave tips once the diner reopens.[19]

On February 18, 2023, as part of massive reopening efforts, James Madison University students as part of GIVE (Growth International Volunteer Excursions) Andy Luong, head volunteer coordinator at GIVE, and five other volunteers from James Madison University helped take down the Little Grill sign for refurbishing, power wash exterior walls, and prep the interior for painting.[3]

They are very focused on sustainability, community, empowering world citizens, making a lasting impression and being the roots of change. So, our club was based on bringing that back to Harrisonburg and leaving our roots here making a lasting change as students.

— Andy Luong

Both owners are alumni of nearby James Madison University, Ron in 1990 and Melanie in 1992 and both view The Little Grill as an important second home to the JMU community.[3]

They have hired William “Billy” Bleecker, co-chef at Clementine Cafe in downtown Harrisonburg, as general manager.[12] The Copelands reopened the diner as "The Little Grill" on March 21, 2023.[2] Their daughter, Rose, currently works there.[16]

Prior to a summer 2015 menu transition, special menu nights at Little Grill happened on set days of the week. Tuesday was Mexi Night, Wednesday was Indian Night or Wildcard Special depending on the chef, Thursday was Breakfast Night, and Friday was Down Home Night/Southern Cookin'.

The Little Grill takes part in the semiannual Taste of Downtown, a week-long event that features lunch and dinner specials at most downtown Harrisonburg restaurants who put together discounted menu offerings and combos as a promotional activity initiated by Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, a nonprofit revitalization group, in 2008.[23]

The Little Grill is a bit of a rarity. It's tough to find vegan spare ribs so delicious you never want the real thing again. It's near impossible to stumble upon a restaurant with only farm fresh eggs and locally grown chicken. And an actual worker-owned collective? I had never even heard of another in these parts![24]

In their 2023 return to ownership of the restaurant, the Copelands are committed to preserving what's best from the gustatory traditions, while introducing some surprises to the menu. As he puts it:[15]

We want it to be the grill (sic) that everybody loves but we want them to be surprised by something on the menu, something new. We want it to be the old grill (sic) but also something new so that’s kind of what we’re using as a guiding light.

Copeland adds, “We’re going to have espresso now, so we’re gonna be learning about that and getting our menu straight, cooking for ourselves, learning our new POS system, all that — so we have a lot of moving parts."[25]

The Little Grill venue has been used to record music. Previous owner Tom Kildea recorded his album Love Like Wood there in 1999.

Little Grill serves as a venue each year for The Mid-Atlantic College Radio Conference (MACRoCk), joining other downtown Harrisonburg venues Artful Dodger, Blue Nile, Clementine, Court Square Theater, and Downtown 34 Music (in 2011).[33]

Including workshops, panels, and a label exposition, this college radio festival is funded by grass-roots businesses.[34]

Musical acts that performed during the 2011 festival at Little Grill included: Low Branches, Bison, Wailin' Storms, Spirit Family Reunion, Auld Lang Syne, Luke Saunders, and Cat Magic Co.[35] The Daily News-Record[36] describes MACRoCk as an ...

... eclectic mix of bands brings thousands of independent music enthusiasts to downtown Harrisonburg every spring. Festivalgoers cram into local venues to hear groups from throughout the East Coast jamming out tunes ranging from folk to garage metal and everything in between.[37]

Adrienne Young and Andy Thacker play with her band Little Sadie as fundraiser for FoodRoutes; June 27, 2008

Adrienne Young & Little Sadie performed June 27, 2008 'Buy Fresh, Buy Local' in support of FoodRoutes Network (FRN), a national non-profit organization that aims to support other localized groups that encourage sustainable agriculture and community-based food systems. Her group headlined at the annual Our Community Place Lawn Jam the following day.

Noted area musicians organized and performed in a fundraiser in support of local musician and luthier Steve Parks, from nearby Dayton, who had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer, in 2008. Performers included blues musician Bob Driver, former owner of the Grill; together they formed the musical group Parks & Driver.

A crowd watches Ketch Secor and Chris 'Critter' Fuqua benefit for Our Community Place January 14, 2012

Ketch Secor and Chris "Critter" Fuqua appeared there, together with Robert and Phillip St. Ours on January 14, 2012, to support Our Community Place.[38] If Johnny St. Ours had not been filming a documentary elsewhere, they might have had a complete reunion of the Route 11 Boys—precursor group to both The Hackensaw Boys (which Robert St. Ours helped found) and Old Crow Medicine Show (which Secor and Fuqua helped found). This reunion was the first time that many of the original members of Route 11 Boys had performed together, and marked a return to Old Crow for Fuqua, a return to Harrisonburg for Secor, and a collective return to where it all began for all of them.

Having recently lost one of its original founders, the group had been going through a difficult time and was in need of a renewal. As Secor recounts:

After Willie (Watson) departed things were just kind of haywire for a while. Critter and I got to talking about wanting to play some Conjunto down in San Antonio, or maybe go back up to Maine like we'd done in the Route 11 Boys. Both of things as a way of getting back to the reason we set out making music in the first place. What we decided on was heading back up the valley and playing at the Little Grill where we'd literally first got started. Being back home again was full of pure goodness and renewal, just to sing with an old pal in an old haunt. For some folks it was like we'd never left Rockingham County. As we pulled outta town, we picked up a hitchiker (sic), a kid we knew from high school, and dropped him off at his Mom's house in Weyer's Cave (sic) just like time hadn't flinched.[39]

Fuqua concurs that the "whole 'Ketch and Critter' tour" that year "was pretty special":

It is hard to describe all the emotions that I felt as Ketch and I rolled off the Cumberland plateau (sic) and into the Smokies, then up to our old home place in the snowy Shenandoah Valley. It felt so right, so pure, so redemptive. Ketch and I have both been through a lot during our separation these last four or five years, and this trip was cathartic in a cosmic sort of sense. We have always remained the best of friends, but at the core of our friendship, among many other things, is this passion for music, an old, bardic spirit that needed to be rekindled.[39]

Extra special was the visit to the Grill for Fuqua:

The highlight of the trip for me was playing at the Little Grill . . This is where Ketch and I cut our teeth when we were 13, and it felt like the hero's journey, the one we all take in life, and we had come full circle. All the money we made . . went . . to support . . Our Community Place. Ron Copeland, the Little Grill visionary and now Mennonite Preacher (sic), was thrilled, and it felt so good to give back to him, because he gave us so much. A place to smoke and drink coffee and play songs and fall in love with velvet paintings of Bob Dylan.[39]

Adding to their nostalgic return were their previous band mates and friends: "Our good buddies from the Route 11 boys, the St. Ours brothers, Phillip and Robert Holy Bear, got on stage with us, and that sealed the deal. Heaven."[39]