Nourish Up pulled back the curtain Thursday on its new commercial Meals on Wheels kitchen at the nonprofit’s Hunger Hub in west Charlotte. The 10,000-square-foot culinary space, branded the Home Court Kitchen, will shift much of the organization’s daily meal prep in-house and boost capacity for medically tailored meals for homebound neighbors. The ribbon-cutting capped a multi-year buildout of the 90,000-square-foot Hunger Hub on Carrier Drive.
According to Axios Charlotte, the kitchen cost $4.4 million and serves as the final piece of a roughly $22.8 million capital campaign, CEO Tina Postel told reporters. The buildout will allow Nourish Up to prepare roughly 500 meals in-house each weekday and supports a network that serves about 12,000 people per month across Mecklenburg County. Axios Charlotte also reported that the group is recruiting volunteer drivers to cover roughly 75 Meals on Wheels routes and 50 home grocery-delivery routes.
Kitchen Capacity and Scale
According to Broadstreet Impact Services, project planning and financing materials show the Hunger Hub could eventually produce as many as 2,500 medically tailored meals per day as operations ramp up. The new kitchen’s expanded cold storage and prep space is designed to help meet rising demand, and Nourish Up reported delivering about 126,868 medically tailored meals in 2023, per a Nourish Up press release.
Funding and Local Partners
The Charlotte Hornets Foundation provided a $1 million gift that helped name the space the Home Court Kitchen, according to Axios Charlotte. Major earlier gifts, including a $3 million pledge from the David and Nicole Tepper Foundation, also moved the capital campaign forward, as reported by the Charlotte Observer.
What Comes Next
Nourish Up plans to centralize its medically tailored meal production at the new kitchen and deepen partnerships with other hunger-relief groups across the county. The nonprofit held a ribbon-cutting at 901 Carrier Drive on June 25, 2026, per the event listing, and posts volunteer opportunities and program details on its website.
