Xavier Jones, proper, and his enterprise lover, Warren Dews Jr., left, are opening a new restaurant at the Firehouse Cafe on Park Avenue in Adams. “This making is a landmark, and we don’t want to be just a cafe — we want to be a place,” Jones stated.
ADAMS — Xavier Jones is coming back again to Adams, this time to commence a restaurant at Park Street’s historic Firehouse Cafe.
Folks could keep in mind the 38-12 months-old chef from BiggDaddy’s Philly Steak Home, which Jones owned and operated in Adams from 2017 to 2018 and in Pittsfield from 2018 to 2019.
Now, he is returning, along with company associate Warren Dews Jr., to try a thing new: a Mediterranean-infused modest plates cafe with a menu that will reflect the cuisines of up to 30 nations around the world.
“This constructing is a landmark, and we really do not want to be just a restaurant — we want to be a vacation spot,” Jones claimed. “People go to Lenox for terrific foods. Individuals go to Williamstown for food. We want people today to go to Adams and know they can get the exact same high quality of food stuff, even much better.”
Jones and Dews, who co-very own the enterprise, hope to get started running in April and are on the lookout to employ staff, they stated. They will host interviews for a sous chef, line cooks, servers, bartenders, hosts and foods runners at the cafe on Feb. 11-12.
The cafe will provide evening meal from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
“We’re going to serve foodstuff from Asia to Europe to Northern Africa,” Jones mentioned. “We’ll also be throwing some American, New England delicacies in there. We’ll be throwing some Caribbean delicacies in there. We’ll be using food stuff from all in excess of the entire world and presenting it in a Mediterranean fashion.”
Dews, a businessman and publisher of the Greenville Pioneer and Ravena Information-Herald newspapers in the Cash Area, has a simple rationalization for why he preferred to be a section of the restaurant: “It’s Xavier.”
Jones, a Philadelphia native, experienced at Le Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Pittsburgh. He moved to the Berkshires in the early 2000s and has labored as a chef in major-level positions at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge and Spice in Pittsfield, between other places to eat.


When people location him in malls and shops, Jones stated, they generally mention BiggDaddy’s and his cheesesteaks. BiggDaddy’s followers will be happy to listen to that Jones has not cooked his previous cheesesteak in the Berkshires.
“Maybe Tuesday night time or after a thirty day period will be cheesesteak evening, where we serve the cheesesteaks that Adams remembers,” Jones explained. “That’s what they know me for. … So, we’ll permit the town recall those very good previous times.”
Adams Pick out Board associates expressed enthusiasm for Jones’ return as they accepted a liquor license for the restaurant last week”.
Member Richard Blanchard joked that he was upset with Jones since he “had to obtain somewhere else to go eat” following BiggDaddy’s closed. Member Joe Nowak included that he finds it “exciting to have that sort of foods scene listed here in Adams” just after hearing Jones explain the menu.
“Living in this article my full everyday living, I never don’t forget something fairly like that,” Nowak stated.
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Jones claimed he kept in get in touch with with Invoice Kolis, who owns the 47 Park St. constructing, just after operating with Kolis for some activities at the cafe all-around 2017. They began conversing about the possibility of a new restaurant shortly ahead of the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Dews and Jones truly feel that they are coming to Adams at the appropriate time and in the suitable put.
The firehouse, which was extra to the National Register of Historic Destinations in 1982, initially housed the Inform Hose Co., Adams volunteer fireplace department, and later on housed an ambulance service right before its conversion to business use for dining places.
Development on the Greylock Glen, the prospect of a reopened Adams Theater and other recent developments led Dews to think that “this is likely to be the location wherever folks are heading to come to from all more than.”
“We want Adams to be the new Good Barrington,” Dews claimed.
Jones has programs to staff up with nearby artists to dangle operate within the restaurant and to use merchandise from regional farms, he claimed. He envisions that the making would keep on being available for the town to use for meetings and gatherings.
“Adams has received a ton of good points heading on with the theater opening up, with the Glen, and we want to be a section of that, specifically with the rail trail and the volume of individuals that Adams is bringing in,” Jones additional. “We want to capture that wave and be a portion of that success. It is the primary time, perfect possibility, very best area in Adams to be.”
Dews, a member of the Berkshire Black Economic Council, additional that the pair “want to be a portion of this growth of Black businesses” in the Berkshires.
“The Berkshires are a attractive area,” Dews said. “The two of us enjoy this spot, and we want Black-owned corporations to survive and do nicely in this article since it’s likely to help all of the Berkshires. You will see youthful individuals of color see opportunities to do nicely in this location.”



