Many Americans looked for ways to help after the September 11 attacks. One New York City businessman, Antonio Nino Vendome, turned his family restaurant into a relief center. Staffed by volunteers and supported largely by donations, Nino’s served hundreds of thousands of free meals twenty-four hours a day to firefighters, police officers, Red Cross workers, and others at the World Trade Center site. For many, Nino’s became a refuge, a place to find companionship and support as well as a meal. Many of the workers left their organizational patches as tokens of thanks, which Nino attached to kitchen aprons and hung on the wall.

Excerpt of interview with Nino Vendome
“We’ve made a commitment to keep our doors open until our city is rebuilt, healed and up-and-running. To that end, we created the Nino’s Restaurant 9/11 Fund, a non-profit corporation operated exclusively as a relief center that feeds and comforts rescue and relief workers,” said Vendome. “Without constant donations of food and the time of volunteer chefs and waiters, it would be almost impossible for me to stay open. I can’t thank these people enough.”

The apron  is a kitchen worker’s apron covered with uniform patches. This phenomenon of patches and the phenomenon of national response to 9/11 is reflected in this artifact.

Nino Vendome is a spectacular man. Opened his Canal Street restaurant for the rescue workers of 9/11 on 9/13. From September 13 into May, I believe, his restaurant was cranking, 24 hours a day, every day of the week with volunteers, donated food, producing a quality of food and experience that is important to this day.

The aprons, even one apron unified that story for us very well. There are 65 patches on that apron, from towns like Dayton, Ohio, and Boston, Los Angeles, and Boise, Idaho. Fire, rescue, even civilian work. Patches from Con Ed, from the FBI and the Customs Service, left at Nino’s. They still have aprons, now they have a big full sized picture of our apron in the Smithsonian.

Nino’s today is a recovery site for traumatized rescue workers, workers going through post-traumatic stress, who are taken there by their doctors and nurses to cope with their troubles.