Now LIVE-- Bob Singer

If you've lived in New Hampshire long enough, you know the Singer name. Merchants Motors. The Singer Center for the Arts. The Elliot Hospital. And now -- Bravo, the stunning new restaurant right across from the Palace Theatre that Bob Singer opened at 74 years old, just because he still sees potential in downtown Manchester.

That's Bob Singer in a nutshell. He doesn't slow down. He doubles down.

In our latest episode of Beyond the Plate, Carol sits down with the 2026 Greater Manchester Chamber Citizen of the Year for a conversation that goes way deeper than business. Bob grew up in Manchester's north end, the son of Irving and Bernice Singer -- parents who built Merchants Motors into a local institution not just by selling cars, but by taking care of people. Bob watched that. He absorbed it. And then he spent the next several decades proving it wasn't just something he witnessed -- it was something he inherited.

Merchants Motors became one of the largest fleet management companies in the country. But the part of Bob's story that really stays with you is what came after one of the hardest moments of his life. When he lost his son Jordan to cancer at 28, Bob channeled that grief into action -- creating Jordan's Dream Fund to help young cancer patients across the country afford life-saving treatment.

And then he opened a restaurant. Because of course he did.

Carol and Bob have history -- she actually worked as a nanny for his family years ago -- so this conversation has a warmth and an ease to it that you don't often get in a podcast interview. It's two people who've both built something in this city, sitting down and talking about what that actually takes. The sacrifices. The community. The "why" behind it all.

If you've ever wondered what it means to really invest in a place -- not just financially, but personally, emotionally, generationally -- Bob Singer is your answer.