More to chew on
Posted November 5th, 2007 by shichangpu
I just picked up the most recent copy of the Utne Reader and found an article about “Pay What you Can” Restaurants. It seems the idea of the sliding scale is emerging elsewhere.
One such restaurant called One World Café in Salt Lake City, focuses on locally grown, fair trade, and organic fare, healthfully prepared and offered to customers at a rate they choose. Payment is on the honor system and the food is served cafeteria style so that people can ask for portions that they think they will eat, thus reducing waste.
What struck me the most, aside from the obvious parallels with the CAN movement (low cost, participatory, health oriented, social entrepreneurship, etc) was that the woman featured in this article was (is?) AN ACUPUNCTURIST!
Apparently she had a thriving practice but “felt a nudge—I guess you could say it was spiritual, from the universe—to close the business and open the café.”
So perhaps she had not heard of community acupuncture back in 2003 when she opened her restaurant? Or maybe the nudge was to feed her community in a more literal sense?
Alas my dream of having a pay what you can soup and snack kiosk in my one-day bigger space clinic (mind you with a garden outside) is not as far away as I thought.
Re: More to chew on
Hey Chris,
Here in West Philadelphia, and luckily a block away, there's a community meeting space called the A Space (anarchist). These two artists, both men, have started doing a by-donation vegan luncheonette every Wednesday. Fantastic food. Big tables which encourage everyone to eat together and talk. It's a HUGE quality-of-life increase to be able to go to that before our Wednesday shift. I get to see lots of patients and friends. I've been loving noticing parallels, too.
I'm hoping the two chefs are going to cater lunch for the CA workshop here next weekend.
By the way, we've got to get all the north east folks together soon.
Re: More to chew on
I think this is awesome and so much can be done with it in so many ways.
One could start out small with just a few items offered and as business grew, fast undoubtedly, the menu could increase.
Make that dream come true, don't just dream it! I might just have to add that to my dream list too ;)
Julie O.
Re: More to chew on
I love it. I've had a longtime fantasy of having a small "hot lunch" restaurant, with a soup of the day and one or two other things to choose from, based on what's in season, what needs to be used up from the day before, etc....adding the "portion control" thing is brilliant. I mean, I possess a pretty strong appetite but I'm not a 200 pounder working on a railroad, either, which is the caloric requirement most restaurant portions seem to be aimed at satisfying.
My sweetie was just at a science studies thing in Marin county, and the place they stayed at also runs a program for schoolkids (maybe junior high?), with hands-on learning in biology and ecology. One of the side-experiments that they conduct is weighing all of their meals - before eating and after they are done - to get a sense of how much is wasted. (They also choose their own serving sizes in a cafeteria style setting.) Their goal is to self-monitor so that they get down to zero waste by the end of the week. Pretty cool.
Re: More to chew on
I have always thought that this is a great model.
There are a couple of these restaurants in Melbourne , Australia and I have always thought that having a CA clinic next door or in the same premises would be fabulous.
I have definately been keeping my eyes out for premises that would lend themselves to such a venture here in Portland. If anyone knows of a fabulous vege chef working with fresh seasonal produce and willing to start such a venture here in Portland with me please let me know
You would only need a few dishes per night and there is always the option of using it as a CA clinic by day and a Pay what you can thing at night. I know that the original restaurant in St Kilda , Melbourne has done very well and has now a sister restaurant in an area of Melbourne home to lots of new African and S American immigrants and like the CA clinic model the immigrant community has embraced the new restaurant and its menu is full of dishes from those immigrant communities.The space is also a community resource for meetings in off hours.
Anyone in PDX with some premises or a great chef friend looking for premises and an idea that could work very well please shoot me an email.
This is a fabulous idea and I would love to see these tandem businesses all over the U.S.What they find in the original St Kilda restaurants is that the local homeless come in a for a meal,alongside students and low income groups and people from all socio-economic levels and that people from out of area come because the food and ambience are just plain good.
An envelope is left on the table and patrons put in their money when they leave so that no-one needs to feel uncomfortable about their ability to pay.
Like the CA clinics everyone does pay and it affords patrons the dignity of working within their budget.The business is able to average out what each patron pays and so can budget and plan for each meal just as the CA model allows a business to average out what each patient pays and thus plan and budget services accordingly. Its brilliant dont you think?
Diane