ALSO SEE: 'There's a Dignity to This Place': Inside the World of
Pay-What-You-Can Restaurants

ALSO SEE: One World Everybody Eats

Growing Trend of Pay-What-You-Can Restaurants Offer Safe Spaces and Service

By Dahlia Ghabour, The Louisville Courier Journal

18 December 19

 

t first glance, The Table cafe in Louisville's Portland neighborhood looks like any other, with its historic-looking wood interior and a menu that features simple, seasonal fare with locally sourced ingredients.

Open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., The Table is often populated with Portland residents and employees who work nearby, enjoying menu items like smoked chicken and pork sandwiches or grilled cheese with pumpkin butter. 

What you won’t see while looking around the room is how much the guests are paying. Because some of them aren’t paying money at all. 

The Table, at 1800 Portland Ave. opened in 2015 with a pay-what-you-can business plan and $5 to $7 sandwiches. Guests can pay what they can afford, or pay with time in service, in exchange for a meal. Other guests can pay the full amount of the suggested meal price or add a little extra to “pay it forward.” 

In 2015, The Table stood out as one of the only Louisville-area restaurants of its kind —  a ministry in disguise — opening doors and providing new food options for people in low-income areas who might not be able to afford to eat out otherwise. 

Since then, at least five more restaurants with social missions have opened in the Louisville area, taking their foodservice one step further. 

Scarlet's Bakery opened in 2015, followed by Cup of Joy in Louisville and 8th Street Pizza in New Albany, Indiana, in 2016. In 2017, DV8 opened in Lexington, and last year the Portland area nonprofit Love City opened a barbecue restaurant called Porkland BBQ. 

Together, the restaurants are offering pay-it-forward and pay-what-you-can business plans. Cup of Joy offers significantly cheaper meals, while The Table and Porkland BBQ allow customers to volunteer service for a meal. Scarlet's Bakery is a bit different, setting average prices but employing women who have been exploited or abused in the adult entertainment industry. 

Most of the restaurants are part of nonprofit ministries in disguise, aiming to serve the under-served with dignity.

Some, like 8th Street Pizza, kind of stumbled into it. 

8th Street Pizza began in 2016 as a side gig and fundraiser for Clean Socks Hope, an urban ministry that offers a low-income food cooperative and other resources to New Albany's Midtown neighborhood. It's grown continually since then, from one day of foodservice at the beginning to three. 

Now three years later, the restaurant is moving into a new space at 141 E. Main St., quadruplethe size of its former location, and will be open six days a week. 

"At first we were only doing this to pay our rent," said Jeff Minton, executive director of Clean Socks Hope and general manager of 8th Street Pizza. "It got so big. It kind of jumped out from under us." 

The new pizza shop will open in mid-December,change its name to "8th on Main"and hire about 10 to 15 new employees. There are72 seats available at couches, bar stools and tables. 8th on Main will serve New York-style pizzas, calzones and breadsticks, which Minton said is what sets the brand apart. The new menu will alsoexpand to include salads and desserts. 

It operates like a normal restaurant, with the exception of the pay-it-forward program to provide for those who don't have the resources for a hot meal. 

According to Minton, 8th Street Pizza has served about 2,000 pay-it-forward pizzas in three years. There is definitely a need there, Minton said of his New Albany location.

It's the same reason why three of the other pay-it-forward restaurants — Cup of Joy, The Table, and Porkland BBQ — all popped up in Portland, which in 2016 ranked as one of the poorest neighborhoods in Louisville and 16 of its peer cities, according to a Greater Louisville Project study. 

John Howard, executive director of The Table, said his restaurant's main purpose is to serve neighbors. 

"If you’re just looking for lunch, come in and have a great meal. If you're looking for something a little deeper, we have that, too," Howard said in a previous interview with The Courier Journal. "People in our neighborhood and folks outside are coming together at The Table to share a good, healthy meal, regardless of the ability to pay." 

The Table operates essentially with volunteers and provides "creative payment solutions for all," according to its Mission Menu, which also touts "Great Food" and "Great Purpose" and encourages diners to "Enjoy the taste of community."

"Everyone has a seat at our table," the logo says.

At Porkland BBQ, about a quarter of the restaurant's business comes from guests who volunteer in exchange for a meal, said co-founder Inga Ardin.

She said the restaurant at 2519 St. Cecilia St. is the only sit-down restaurant in Portland open for dinner, and they've seen an uptick in dinner traffic recently. Fridays are still itsmost popular day — Porkland BBQ got its start hosting a weekly Friday fish fry.

Porkland BBQ is coming up on its second anniversary in the spring. The restaurant launched a catering arm over the summer that has booked 50 events so far, including a Norton Hospital's employee lunch in August. 

"It's important to have neighborhood restaurants, and I think we see that in Portland especially because a few years ago there was just the Dairy Queen, McDonald's and Subway," she said. "Now we've got The Table, Cup of Joy, Farm to Fork. The neighborhood has not only places to eat but places to gather. A lot of people underestimate the influence of restaurants in that capacity." 

The influence of these restaurants goes beyond filling stomachs and bringing people together. Sometimes, just keeping the doors open can make an impact.

It was a normal Friday afternoonin New Albany about a year ago that seared the pay-it-forward mission in Minton's mind. He was wiping down tables at 8th Street Pizza after serving two 18-year-old girls a meal. And then one of them stood up and approached him. 

"You don't remember me, do you?" she said. 

He shook his head, and she reminded him that she used to come into the restaurant with friends when she lived at a meth house nearby. Almost always high, the teens would fall asleep with food in their hands while taking refuge at 8th Street Pizza. She thanked him for his kindness. For not judging her.

He asked if she was doing better.

"She said 'yeah, I'm back home with my parents, I'm safe,'" Minton recalled. "And then she gave me a $20 bill and said she wanted to pay it forward and she left." 

There are more than a dozen stories like that, he said. 

"Course, we don't really do anything, we can't wish change for them," Minton said. "They did it themselves. The only thing we really do is afford them a place to come and be safe."

That's why the hours are being extended at the new 8th On Main, and why coffee and pastries will be served in the early mornings and late nights. 

"What we've always tried to do is say 'look, you can come here,'" Minton said. "You can stay for 10 minutes or five hours, and it'll be safe. It'll be out of the elements. And we can talk to you and try to help you. We're not going to do it for you, but we can help."