So all may eat

About two years ago, my family attended a Lenten mission at Saint Dominic's in Swansea. The priest used the opportunity to create for us the experience of being guests at a soup kitchen. In an orderly line, we held out our Styrofoam bowls for a ladle full of noodle soup and sat at the wooden folding tables in the chilly parish hall. As my wife and daughters ate, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if that was the only meal I could afford to provide for them that day. I got a sense of the feelings of failure and helplessness the poor must experience.

While reflecting on that experience this week, I remembered an article I had read in the Boston Globe about a revolutionary restaurant in Denver called the SAME cafe.

The acronym "SAME" stands for "So all may eat". Unlike a typical restaurant, there is no set menu. The cook puts together whatever ingredients he has on hand. The food is served buffet style so there is little waste. But, most importantly, there is no set price. A donation box is set out so that customers can pay whatever they can afford that day. Those who can't pay volunteer washing dishes or mopping the floor.

Unlike a soup kitchen, you can't tell who is there because they can't afford to eat anywhere else. The poor are not singled out. They are customers like everyone else.

The SAME cafe provides more than food. It gives attention and a sense of community to people who so often feel lost and afraid. It is a place where people from all walks of life can mingle and overcome their prejudices and fears.

You'd think that such a restaurant would have little chance of surviving, but the SAME cafe has been in business for just about two years now. And it is not the first of its kind. It was actually inspired by a similar restaurant in Salt Lake City called One World-Everybody Eats.

I've provided links to the two restaurants on my "favorite links" board (I still haven't figured out how to embed links in the blog itself, sorry). Hopefully, more people will be inspired to take the risk of setting up such places throughout the country.