The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen restaurants have had 200,000 customers, and they've served them all.

"We are here to celebrate!" said Jon Bon Jovi in a March 4 video post.

Bon Jovi and wife Dorothea Bongiovi celebrated the Red Bank and Toms River JBJ Soul Kitchen community restaurants' 200,000th customer with the video posted to the Soul Kitchen social media sites.

“When we first opened, people did not understand our unique Pay It Forward model. We are not a soup kitchen. We are not a pay-what-you-want restaurant. We are a unique Pay It Forward model where those who are unable to pay, volunteer their time,” says Dorothea in the video. “Those who can pay, pay for their meal and donate to pay it forward. Everyone has the same amazing meal.”

Confetti was thrown at both the Red Bank and Toms River locations.

The flagship location on Monmouth Street in Red Bank opened in 2011 with 33 seats. The JBJ Soul Kitchen has expanded to include the BEAT Center in Toms River, and locations at Rutgers University-Newark and New Jersey City University. A second Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen community restaurant in Toms River is a temporary pop-up site inside the Ocean County Library .

The 200,000 meals designation applies to meals served in Red Bank and Toms River during regular hours.

It does not include meals served during the restaurants' warming center operations; meals served to first responders and victims of superstorm Sandy; and during the COVID quarantine, when the Soul Kitchen was only doing take-out for the in-need community.

A pic of Jon washing dishes at the Red Bank location during COVID went viral.

“I’m there every day we’re open. I’m the dishwasher, that’s we do, that’s what (wife) Dorothea does,” said Jon to the Asbury Park Press in April 2020. “We're happy and proud to be able to have the opportunity to give back.”

Visit jbjsoulkitchen.org for more information.

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