At 141 Alexander Avenue in Mott Haven, there’s a restaurant doing something genuinely unusual: it’s owned by a nonprofit, every dollar of profit goes directly back into the South Bronx community, and the food is actually good. Nourish opened in August 2025 in the former Chocobar Cortes space — and now that it’s past its first year of operations, it’s become one of the most interesting dining stories in the borough.
If you haven’t been yet, or if you’ve been meaning to go, here’s what you need to know about one of the Bronx’s most quietly important new restaurants.
The Story Behind Nourish
Nourish was created by the Oyate Group, a Bronx-based nonprofit focused on youth support and economic opportunity in the borough. When Chocobar Cortes — a beloved chocolate cafe and restaurant that had been in the Mott Haven space — closed in late 2024 after a series of break-ins and financial struggles, the Oyate Group stepped in. Rather than let the space go dark, founder Tomas Ramos bought the debt from Chocobar’s owners, saving them from potential bankruptcy while preserving a dining anchor in a neighborhood that badly needed one.
“When Choco closed, the other restaurants really took a hit,” Ramos told the Bronx Times at the time of the opening. The South Bronx’s small business ecosystem is interconnected enough that one closure can send ripples through the whole block — a dynamic Ramos understood and was determined to interrupt.
One hundred percent of Nourish’s profits go to the Oyate Group’s initiatives, including the Brandon Hendricks scholarship and a range of community-based programs. It’s not a charitable dining experience in the sense of sacrifice — the food is genuinely worth going for.
What to Eat
Chef Kyle Vereen runs a globally inspired menu of shareables and entrees that reflects flavors from different corners of the world. The menu includes Korean fried chicken, steak frites, duck fat biscuits, chicharron, and seasonal specials like ceviche. Everything is made in house. The dining room has a Tulum-inspired feel — airy, light-filled, with large windows and a welcoming bar along the back wall — and it stays open late: the kitchen runs until 1 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
That late-night kitchen is itself a statement. Mott Haven and the broader South Bronx have historically lacked the kind of late dining infrastructure that’s taken for granted in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Nourish was designed in part to fill that gap — to give South Bronx residents the option to eat well at midnight without getting on the subway.
More Than a Restaurant
Adjacent to the dining room, Nourish’s cafe sells coffees, cold drinks, and high-end specialty items like olive oil, coffee beans, tinned fish, aged salami, and crackers — pantry goods that are standard in other NYC neighborhoods but hard to find in the South Bronx. Ramos has described the goal as bringing to Mott Haven the kind of “bounce around” food culture that exists on the Lower East Side: a drink at one place, dinner at another, dessert somewhere else.
The space also has a larger downstairs kitchen that is being developed as a workforce training center, set to teach culinary and front-of-house skills to people preparing for careers in high-end NYC restaurants. That program is being built out now and represents the longer arc of what Nourish is trying to accomplish.
What You Need to Know
- Nourish — 141 Alexander Ave., Mott Haven, Bronx.
- Kitchen open until 1 a.m. weekdays, 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
- 100% of profits benefit the Oyate Group’s youth and community programs.
- Menu: Korean fried chicken, steak frites, duck fat biscuits, ceviche (seasonal), and more — all made in house.
- Reservations: @nourishbx on Instagram for details.
- Workforce training program launching in the downstairs kitchen later this year.
There aren’t many restaurants in New York City that you can feel good about supporting in a direct, documented way. Nourish is one of them — and it earns the visit on the food alone. It’s the kind of place that the South Bronx has needed for a long time: a serious, late-night, neighborhood restaurant run by people who are genuinely invested in the block it sits on.
For more on the Bronx’s evolving food and community scene, see our City Island restaurant coverage and our June community events roundup for what’s happening across the borough this month.
