Why small restaurants keep coming to the rescue

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This week, our shutdown government began depriving some 42 million Americans of food. In response, chefs leaped into action. Yes, chefs.  

With SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and CalFresh benefits cut off as of Saturday, small, independent local restaurants — including Rusty Ladle (opens in new tab), Devil’s Teeth Baking Company (opens in new tab), and Al Pastor Papi (opens in new tab) in San Francisco and Monster Pho (opens in new tab) and Puerto Rican Street Cuisine (opens in new tab) in Oakland — jumped in to offer free or discounted meals to those programs’ recipients. 

My editor Lauren’s initial response to these philanthropic gestures wasn’t “How amazing!” It was a mini-burst of outrage on behalf of the restaurants. Over the cubicle partition, I could see her dramatic hand gestures: “Why do tiny restaurants have to come to the rescue? Why aren’t the big corporations doing this?” 

Over the years, Lauren and I have watched restaurants — which must constantly fight to stay afloat — give generously to lifesaving causes. They function almost maternally, as their communities’ primary caretakers.

During the Los Angeles fires, restaurants mobilized to make food for firefighters (opens in new tab). In 2020, during the pandemic, they nourished hospital workers (opens in new tab). On an ongoing basis, chefs support public schools, show up at fundraising events like Foodwise Sunday Supper and those for Meals on Wheels, and donate proceeds to nonprofits like Dining out for Life. Not to be outdone, there’s superhero chef José Andrés, who started World Central Kitchen in 2010 as a reaction to the Haiti earthquake. Andrés doesn’t wear a cape, but he and his team have parachuted food into war-torn areas like Gaza and landed with their culinary rations via helicopter in North Carolina flood zones. 

Sure, restaurants know how to cook, but it’s the hospitality impulse — the urge to feed and serve — that drives chefs’ desire to pay it forward. The part that’s hard to square is how much time and money restaurants give compared to how little they often have to spare. 

John Lindsey, co-owner of Rusty Ladle in the Outer Sunset, is a prime example of the industry’s bleeding heart. “I’ve seen the income inequality grow in San Francisco, and it’s really important that we try to help in any way we can,” he said. “It’s part of the ethos of a restaurant.”

He was inspired to give away soup to SNAP recipients when he saw Oakland’s Monster Pho announce that they’d be ladling out free and reduced-price pho to folks. (It was a domino effect: Monster Pho was inspired by Tony & Alba’s Pizza and Pasta in San Jose.) “I serve soup, and it has a lot of history in regards to feeding people,” said Lindsey. 

It’s not just restaurants. It’s markets and farmers, too. Christine Farren — executive director of Foodwise, the nonprofit that runs the Ferry Plaza and Mission Community markets — said the organization’s farmers markets will continue to run the “Market Match (opens in new tab)” program, even though CalFresh funds have been turned off. For now, they will offer $15 in paper market vouchers (per person, per market day) to anyone who is a current CalFresh recipient and has insufficient funds in their account.

I asked Farren why it’s always the little guys who step up first. “Studies show that people of lower economic means give a higher percentage of their income, for one,” she said. “Also, the people most affected by a problem are the ones that can come up with a solution to that problem. In this instance, tech and affluent people are not experiencing fear of the SNAP benefit cliff and ICE raids.” Restaurant workers are. 

Since the announcement that SNAP funds were running dry, the city of San Francisco and the philanthropy Crankstart stepped in to provide $18 million in emergency funding. (Crankstart is funded by Michael Moritz, chairman of The Standard.) The Trump administration now says that SNAP will be partially funded in November —  though, as is Trump’s wont, the answer varies day to day. But no matter the outcome, restaurants are always out there holding the line — whether during a natural disaster or a disaster of an administration.

Maybe another reason restaurants are quick to fire up the stoves is that the nature of the job provides a more intimate relationship to people — one you can’t get from, say, the top of Salesforce Tower. Restaurant people are generally a ground-floor, roll-up-your-sleeves bunch. “Sure, we work incredibly hard, but we also see the beautiful moments,” Lindsey said. “We’re so in tune with the community — it’s not like I’m selling someone socks.”