Emma’s Torch in Bethesda Today

Café, culinary training center for refugees to open in Silver Spring early 2026

Emma’s Torch, a Brooklyn, New York-based nonprofit that provides refugees with culinary training, is planning to open a café and training center in downtown Silver Spring next spring, according to founder and executive director Kerry Brodie.

On Friday, Brodie told Bethesda Today that she hopes the center will be a “community hub where people can gather, our students can learn and we can really welcome the newest neighbors” to the community.

The nonprofit is a “social enterprise” that provides culinary training and job placement services for refugees, asylees and survivors of human trafficking, according to Brodie. The nonprofit also runs cafes and catering businesses that are staffed by trainees.

The nonprofit, which was launched by Brodie in 2016, has three locations in New York and one in Washington, D.C.’s Brookland neighborhood. Brodie said the Silver Spring location will serve as the nonprofit’s new regional operations hub…read more.