With Friday afternoons filled with work and picking up kids from school, families often scramble last minute to put a Shabbat meal on the table. Last year, in attempt to resolve this issue, Head of Food Services Erick Gilbert and the CESJDS kitchen, led by Chefs Rubir Vega and Elmer Vega, started a “Shabbat to Go” service.

Shabbat to Go offers families the opportunity to order prepared meals through an online form by 2 p.m. on Wednesday, and pick up the food after school on Friday. The menu features a wide variety of options including soups, salads, chicken and brisket.

Lower School art teacher Jesse Nathans finds Shabbat to Go convenient for her lifestyle because she works full time and can pick up the food right where she works.

“The service is very family-centered and I felt it really met the needs of a pre-Shabbat preparation,” Nathans said. “There were large quantities [of food], and when I couldn’t get something, there were enough basics that I could always add to it.”

For Nathans, Shabbat to Go is especially helpful because her Shabbat preparations do not typically start on Friday, but take the whole week to plan.

“In order to prepare for Shabbat, you have to start doing the shopping on Monday, Tuesday make one meal, Wednesday make another meal, Thursday make the challah and Friday there are always still things to do,” Nathans said.

Gilbert’s schedule is equally busy. He is in charge of deciding what goes on the menu, receiving families’ orders, making sure he gets all of the right products by Thursday, creating a production sheet for the cooks, packaging everything Friday morning and delivering it on time to customers by Friday afternoon. Gilbert takes pride in this hard work and the range of foods the service has to offer.

“I want the food to represent a Shabbat meal and [be] a little nicer than normal, so we turn it up a notch or two,” Gilbert said. “Last year I introduced Mole, which is a kosher Mexican dish. Last time I checked, we are one of the only services to offer a kosher, allergy-friendly and Mexican dish.”

JDS parents Art and Sharyn Fuchs said that they enjoy what the menu has to offer and plan on using the service this year.

“We like the selection of the soups, the spicy pulled barbecue brisket is authentic and the chicken is delicious,” Art said. “Some of the things they offer are unusual, like a salad they offer is made up of different greens and apples; it is something we haven’t seen anywhere else.”

The Fuchs, however, only used the service eight to 10 times last year because they were not aware of the service until late in the year. Gilbert says there was a reason for the soft promotion.

“Every time you start an engine you have to make sure everything is working,” Gilbert said. “We had to fix the website and we had to fix the production sheets, but once we started going it really picked up. This year, we are going to increase the advertising and publicity of it.”

Gilbert plans to increase Shabbat to Go advertising by hanging up flyers, sending out emails to families and improving the website. Families can order their meals on www.papacharliescafe.com and can expect a full course meal on Friday night for a reasonable price.

“It is part of Rabbi Malkus’ bigger picture of offering services to the greater JDS community,” Gilbert said. “We can expand what we are doing to make JDS that much better.”