Community Gallery

For nearly ten years, Tibbitts @ Fern Hill has been more than a restaurant. It has been a place where food moves back into the community, where the support that comes through the door is carried back out, and where feeding others remains part of the work itself.

When this work first started, it was just Chef Shawn Tibbitts, a handful of people, and a promise to feed whoever needed to be fed. There was no big machine behind it. No nonprofit structure. No pay-to-eat system. No donate-to-eat requirement. Just people showing up, cooking, packing meals, giving what they could, and doing the work because the need was real.

Over the years, that promise grew. What began with a few people has become a community that comes together when the call goes out. Friends, supporters, volunteers, neighbors, and people who believe in feeding others have helped carry the work forward.

Every year, Chef Shawn Tibbitts hosts and helps organize free community meals during holidays and gathering days, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, and other community-centered feeds throughout the year. These meals are given freely to unhoused people, elders, youth, single folks, families, people struggling, people alone, and anyone who needs a plate.

There is no judgment at these meals. If someone is hungry, they are welcome. That is the whole point. Food should not come with shame attached to it. On these days, the goal is simple: feed people, treat them with dignity, and remind them they have not been forgotten.

For Shawn, the holidays matter because everybody remembers a holiday. People struggle every day, but holidays can be some of the hardest days of the year. They can bring up grief, loneliness, loss, financial pressure, family pain, and the feeling of being left out while the rest of the world seems to be celebrating.

That is why these meals are about more than food. They are about hope. They are about giving someone a holiday memory that does not hurt as much. They are about letting people feel seen, even for a moment, through a warm meal, a kind word, and a community willing to show up.

This work is done in honor of Shawn’s family, in honor of the people who shaped him, and in honor of who he is. Long before the recognition, before the awards, and before the restaurant became known beyond Tacoma, he carried a dream: if he ever reached a place where he could give back without worrying the same way about finances, he would do it without fail.

That dream became real through Tibbitts @ Fern Hill. The money that comes into the restaurant does not stop at the register. A meaningful part of it goes back out through food, holiday meals, community support, and the simple act of making sure people are fed without asking them for anything in return.

This is not a side project. It is part of who Shawn is. It fills his heart. It honors where he comes from, the people he has lost, the people who raised him, the people who believed in him, and the community that continues to carry this restaurant forward.

Tibbitts @ Fern Hill is small by design, but the work has always reached beyond its 25 seats. This gallery is a public record of that work: the meals, the people, the volunteers, the memories, the hope, and the years of showing up.

It is not charity for attention. It is not performance. It is community, gratitude, responsibility, family, culture, and heart.

This roller coaster will continue as long as Chef Shawn Tibbitts keeps going. That is part of why Tibbitts @ Fern Hill is only open three days a week. The restaurant has to stay small enough for the work to stay real, for the food to stay intentional, and for the community meals to keep happening.