What started as a method of teaching Gainesville youth to cook will soon become a provider of rapid-response relief in East Gainesville.
Carl Watts, the 34-year-old executive chef of Underground Kitchen and executive director of Chef Empowerment, has dedicated his career to giving back to the Gainesville community through soul food and hands-on learning since 2020. Grassroots Kitchen is his next endeavor to aid the community.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Chef Empowerment’s free youth cooking program has taught the community to cook and take pride in where their food comes from.
The participants help Watts prepare meals for Underground Kitchen, a 420-square-foot kitchen that serves dinner Wednesday through Sunday for pickup at around $25 per main course.
“The whole goal is running it as a test kitchen to test out our recipes for our community relief initiatives,” Watts said.
Underground Kitchen’s efforts inspired the chef to create Grassroots Kitchen, another step toward addressing Gainesville food insecurity. An expansion of Chef Empowerment, it aims to teach the community how to prepare food during emergencies like natural disasters.
Meant to serve as the operation’s community food resource, the new initiative is expected to begin in early October by finding partnerships and starting meal preparation for those in distress, Watts said.
After Supplemental Nutrition Program benefits were cut last year, food insecurity has become more prominent than ever, with scarcity reaching 15.2%.
More people started reaching out to Watts for meals, he said, which made him realize the importance of expanding Underground Kitchen to address community needs.
“We're going to follow through with our commitment to make sure we come and do a lot of work in East Gainesville about food insecurity as it starts to develop as well,” Watts said.
In collaboration with the Gainesville Housing Authority, Watts and his team of four were able to remodel a space in East Gainesville into a provision and relief kitchen to serve the community.
These kitchens and disaster relief initiatives will solely be for community outreach and rapid response relief, Watts said, rather than a for-profit model like Underground Kitchen.
“So power outages, major hurricanes, any natural disaster in north central Florida, we will be able to respond to and provide meals within 48 hours of being initiated,” Watts said.
The initiative has also received support from other Gainesville nonprofits.
Working Food, which focuses on building a resilient food system in North Central Florida, has partnered with Underground Kitchen since the pandemic to eliminate food insecurity through youth programs and meal-relief efforts, said Jesse Wilson, Working Food’s 39-year-old youth education director.
“We were able to pay farmers for food that they were having trouble selling because of everything being closed,” Wilson said. “And then Carl was able to cook that food into meal-relief meals that were then distributed through our community partners to folks who needed it.”
Wilson said Watts’ project is an example of “people doing the right work for the right reason.”
Even though Wilson is not directly involved in the development of Grassroots Kitchen, she said its purpose aligns with Working Food’s broader mission of supporting local food systems and entrepreneurs.
Grassroots will work as a commissary kitchen for local farmers to rent, Wilson said.
The demand for food and provisionary community aid was reflected in 2025 when Alachua County sought input on potential local food hubs to identify the services and infrastructure needed.
The admiration for Watts’ dedication extends to his customer base.
Dylan Reimer, a 19-year-old UF biomedical engineering sophomore, said exploring the Gainesville food scene is the perfect escape from his academics. Underground Kitchen is a staple in his restaurant rotation, he added.
“The venture ties back to something more meaningful, and it really gives his soul food soul,” Reimer said.
Watts’ efforts to make the experience feel personal stood out to Reimer, he added. Reimer said Watts always comes to greet him and give him water when he walks by the restaurant.
He recognized Grassroots Kitchen as a way to strengthen connections between Gainesville residents and the student population, he said.
“I think it obviously resonates with a lot of the natives in Gainesville, who rely on support systems like this and the influx of wealth that students bring to this community to thrive,” Reimer said.
UF brought in almost $20 billion in industry output in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, and students generated almost $2 billion in local revenue in 2025.
“Underground Kitchen is in many ways an instrumental part of the bridge between students and Gainesville residents, and [it’s] empowering our community,” he said.
Contact Katharine Litman at klitman@alligator.org. Follow her on X @katealligator.
