Each Monday at Christ Episcopal Church, the Bahamas-born cook puts a lesson from her mother into practice, leading a team of volunteers who prepare about 200 meals for Coconut Grove residents in need.
Growing up in the Bahamas, Ollie Taylor learned to cook from her mother, who passed on her favorite recipes as well as her greatest fear: running short of food. And in a family of 12 children — Ollie is the third oldest — that meant the stove stayed hot.
“Always have extra,” said Taylor, an expression that serves as her motto. “The worst thing that could happen is not having enough.”
That bit of kitchen wisdom has served Taylor well in her current mission: one day each week, cooking enough for 200 meals to feed a growing number of Coconut Grove residents, some unhoused, some out of work, some low-income, all in need.
The Monday evening sit-down dinners that Taylor plans and prepares are held in Christ Episcopal Church — the pink church at 3481 Hibiscus St. — and are served in the historic church’s Gibson Hall by the Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry in charitable outreach to the community’s neediest residents. The meals are free.
Some of the food Taylor prepares on Mondays also gets packaged as takeout dinners on Tuesdays in the Food Pantry’s weekly distribution of free groceries and ready-to-eat meals to 230 households.
“People are astounded that there are so many people who need assistance, but believe me, there are,” said Deb Dolson, the Pantry’s outreach coordinator. So far this year, the Pantry has served 1,694 meals on Mondays and delivered 3,500 meals on Tuesdays, Dolson said.
Read more: The Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry Marks a Milestone
For Taylor, the calling to feed the hungry stems from her religious convictions and the feedback she gets from appreciative diners. She is a member of Christ Episcopal and the Order of the Daughters of the King, church communicants who take a vow of prayer, service and evangelism.
“For me, cooking started as a hobby, but now I’m hooked,” said Taylor. “I enjoy watching people’s faces as they eat, enjoying the food.”
Taylor, 74, the mother of two grown children, was born on Andros Island. Her parents, Victoria and Wilfred Lewis, a Bahamas customs officer, moved the family to Nassau when she was a child.
While working in Nassau, she met John Taylor, a financial consultant from Gainesville. They married, and the couple moved to the U.S. in 1986. After her husband died in 2011, Ollie Taylor stepped up her volunteer work, both with Christ Episcopal, founded by Bahamians in 1901, and with the Pantry. She also worked to enhance her culinary skills, enrolling in Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.
Taylor is also active in Gals on Da Run, a catering business that specializes in Bahamian, Caribbean and Southern cuisine.
Taylor begins prepping for Monday well before Monday arrives. She knows what’s on hand in the Pantry refrigerators, what fresh fruits and vegetables have come in from supermarket donations, and what she feels like cooking this week.
“She can take anything and make something grand out of it,” said Cynthia DeLeon, Taylor’s chief assistant. “That’s her talent.”
As she begins her work early on a recent Monday afternoon, Taylor moves around the recently remodeled church kitchen with a confident grace that is as calm and unhurried as her speaking voice. There are no Gordon Ramsay-style eruptions in Ollie Taylor’s kitchen — a nod to the celebrity chef’s famously fiery television persona.
Well before the first guests arrive, Taylor and DeLeon have most of the hot food cooked and foil-covered in large pans nestled into the warming tables. Ready for dessert: banana bread with ice cream.
The pots and pans are washed and put away, the countertops wiped down.
“I don’t like mess,” said Taylor. “People eat with their eyes. If the kitchen is messy, they wonder about the food. How clean is this? I learned that from my mom.”
The guests begin showing up just before 6 p.m. They come on foot, on bikes, on wheeled walkers. They line up outside the door and are admitted one by one. After spritzing their hands with a sanitizer, diners are handed a ticket and then take a seat at any one of several tables set with white tablecloths. Many of the guests know each other, as neighbors, from the street or because they have been coming to these dinners for years.
On the menu this past week was picadillo, a Latin-style hash made with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, olives and spices, served over rice. Pantry volunteers serve as waiters, taking drink orders — ice water or fruit punch — and setting the entrees and desserts before the diners.
Some guests are first-timers.
“I heard about this from a trolley driver,” said Pia Hanes, a 42-year-old from Georgia who said she has been living on the street since losing her job in a restaurant. “And I have been so hungry.”
Taylor’s goal is to offer a restaurant-quality meal to those who cannot afford to eat in a restaurant, in an atmosphere that encourages diners to engage with each other, not to rush. On Monday, the murmur of quiet conversation and dinner music — jazz, blues, Andrea Bocelli — combined in a tranquil background soundtrack as about 30 men and women shared a meal.
After dinner, all the guests are offered a second meal to go. Most gladly take it.
“I am so full,” said a grateful Pia Hanes. “The food was great.”
Taylor takes pride in her cooking.
“I want the food to be prepared well and served clean,” she said. “Presentation is important to me. I am very, very careful.”
Dolson said, “Ollie wears many hats at the Pantry. She is our chef, our shopper, she’s a bag packer, also a driver. She does it all. Her energy doesn’t stop with the Pantry, but flows into her friends.”
Added volunteer Sabrina Wilkinson, a real estate broker: “Ollie makes it look effortless. She just makes the magic happen. Her goal is to present a meal of delicious, fantastic food that gives our recipients the feeling of a night out. It’s meant to be special.”
The Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry was founded more than 40 years ago by Christ Episcopal Church, Plymouth Congregational Church, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and Temple Judea. Several years after its founding, Pantry volunteers began what became known as Monday night feedings. The tradition was interrupted by the 2020 Covid pandemic but resumed in April 2025.
Taylor will be in the kitchen for several more Mondays before Temple Judea in Coral Gables takes over food prep at the weekly dinners at Christ Episcopal in a six-month rotation between the Pantry and Temple Judea. Taylor will return to the kitchen in April when the Pantry again resumes responsibility for the dinners.
