When Arthur Gordon, owner and chef of The Irregardless Cafe, first put his hands in the soil at a farm in Goldsboro three years ago, he said he felt God. By investing in a community farm that will be partnered with his restaurant and bringing the farming experience to volunteers in the city, Gordon said he believes that he can benefit the whole downtown Raleigh community.

The project, called the Well Fed Community Garden, began about a year ago when Gordon said he first contacted his realtor with the idea to create a community garden. Now, with a property purchased on Athens Drive, a newly renovated well drawing 11 gallons of water a minute and planted blueberries and blackberries, Gordon said he is hopeful for the future of the project. However, some neighbors remain doubtful of the garden’s benefit and Gordon is continuing to talk with city officials to get the green light for some of his plans.

“The idea of the project is that I own the restaurant and I own the [garden] property so there’s not actually going to be any commerce taking place on the land,” Gordon said. “We’ll be growing the vegetables on the land there and we intend to bring them here to the restaurant and we’ll serve them in the restaurant. In return, the restaurant will provide some compost material and we’ll take it back to the property and we’ll compost. It’s a full circle.”

Gordon plans to use students and members of the community to help grow the produce on the farm. While the work on the farm will be on a strict volunteer-basis because the garden isn’t categorized as a business, volunteers would be able to take any produce from the surplus not used by The Irregardless Cafe.

Almost a month ago, Gordon and his wife hosted an open house at the new garden-in-progress for neighbors. Not everyone who attended responded positively. Some attendees said they were concerned about how the farm could negatively affect the community, The News and Observer reported.

Nevertheless, Gordon said that most neighbors are as excited about the project as he and he is confident the farm will only benefit the community.

“I’m not trying to create an adversarial relationship,” Gordon said. “I want everyone to be able to laugh at it. I want everyone to see how ludicrous it is to be banning a garden. At the open house, there were more than one hundred people there and there were only two or three in the neighborhood opposed to it. We expect them to come to the board of adjustments.”

Gordon said that most concerned community members were afraid that the farm would cause the neighborhood to become too commercialized. Others expressed concerns that a farming project would lower property values. However, Gordon said the project would only raise property value by removing a dilapidated property that was in disrepair and by offering a community-building activity.

“What we found from the open house is that there are a lot of people who want to help out,” Gordon said.

This excitement necessitated consideration to create an extended parking area. To discuss the plans for the parking lot and for the greenhouse on the property, Gordon scheduled to meet with city officials on March 11.

“We’re going for a variance on a garden, which makes no sense to me at all personally but we’ll do it,” Gordon said. “My strategy has always been to just do it and then find out later about why I can’t do it. If I wait for permission, I’ll never get started. So I bust ahead and then I might use my celebrity with being a long-time businessman to take the heat for doing this if necessary because again, I know it’s a righteous cause. I know God is on the side of this, he wants this to happen.”

Gordon said he hopes that the Well Fed Community Garden can be an example of how community farms can operate in the city and to address the amount of foreclosed and weak properties that “banks are just sitting on.

“If [the banks] unload it all at once, that’s really going to depress property prices,” Gordon said. “[With projects such as Well Fed Community Garden,] the banks get all of their money back so there’s no problem there, they get good PR and we’re eliminating deserts in the city. Kids are going to get to see produce growing and we’re introducing something else besides prostitution and drugs. It’s got a win-win-win chance to it. We’re trying to be the pioneers showing that this can work.”