Café 56 owner serves pie, with gratitude
Every year for the past decade or so, Jay Leitson puts on a pre-Thanksgiving Day dinner with all the trimmings for patients, families and staff at Cleveland Clinic’s Children’s Hospital. Typically, he serves between 150 and 200 people. And he does it out of sheer gratitude.
Mr. Leitson’s daughter Rachael was born with a heart defect and had open-heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic when she was only 2 days old. That was 17 years ago, and “she’s doing great,” he says. “I always wanted to find a way to give back.”
Mr. Leitson decided to do what he does best: serve great food, and lots of it. As owner of Café 56 on Cleveland’s East Side, he does “lots of catering” along with his lunch and dinner business. He’s used to pleasing a hungry crowd. And he’s solicitous of the young patients’ special requirements. If they can’t come to where he’s serving, he’ll take their meals to their rooms.
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