EAT Café: Everyone at the Table

Segment: EAT Café: Everyone at the Table
Producer: Monica Rogozinski

The EAT Café is Philadelphia’s first pay-what-you-can restaurant, established through partnerships between the Center for Hunger-Free Communities of Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, the Vetri Community Partnership, and Drexel’s Center for Hospitality and Sport Management. The Cafe started as the brainchild of Mariana Chilton, Drexel professor and founder of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities. After witnessing a similar non-profit model several years ago, she decided she wanted to bring the model to Philadelphia as another way to address widespread food insecurity that exists in the city. This past October, the non-profit Café opened its doors in a converted row home on Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia. Every customer is served a three-course meal — which includes soup or salad, an entrée and a desert — all at a suggested price of $15. All diners can choose to pay that price, more, less, or nothing at all. The idea is to get everyone at the table, which is where the café gets its name, so that no one is barred from having a normal restaurant experience, no matter their means.

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Web Extra: The Center for Hunger Free Communities
Mariana Chilton, PhD, MPH, Director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at the School of Public Health at Drexel University, talks about the different programs the Center runs in order to address the issue of hunger in our region.