Chef Greg Beard Sr. was shot in the lower leg outside his own restaurant the night before Easter this year, and on Sunday he’s responding by throwing a free community rally in the parking lot behind that same Curtis Street storefront. The 65-year-old owner of Chef Greg’s Soul “N” The Wall says the event, called Eyes on the Community, is meant to promote neighborhood unity and push back against gun violence in the northwest Detroit corridor where he’s cooked for two decades.
Beard was shot around 10 p.m. on the Saturday before Easter, with the attack happening outside his restaurant at 10009 Curtis, off Wyoming. According to the Detroit Free Press, he had been working that night to cook food for a special occasion and still had Easter Sunday catering orders to fill. He called his wife, his son and 911 in the aftermath, and an ambulance took him to Sinai-Grace Hospital, where he was hospitalized for a week.
The hospital that treated him operates a Level II trauma center on West Outer Drive in northwest Detroit, a facility that handles high volumes of penetrating trauma across Southeast Michigan, according to the Detroit Medical Center. Beard told the Free Press he helped Detroit police identify the shooter and four other men connected to the incident. Months later, per the same report, he expects to permanently retire the cane he’s been using to walk.
A Rally Rooted in Decades of Neighborhood Ties
Beard plans to host Eyes on the Community this Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the lot behind his restaurant, with free admission and refreshments he’s providing himself. City Council Member Angela Whitfield Calloway is expected to speak, Beard said. The restaurant sits in Detroit’s City Council District 2, a district where 90% of residents are Black and more than half are homeowners, according to 2024 NVI survey data cited by BridgeDetroit…