Adam over at Adjab posted a story about how Salt Lake City's One World Cafe and Denver's SAME Cafe are offering customers organic meals and telling them they can pay whatever they like. If you can afford $10, pay that. If you can only afford 10 cents, pay that. And if you don't have any money at all, then you can wash dishes or do other work at the restaurant to pay off the bill.
Seems like a cool idea to me (I've heard of other restaurants doing this too, so maybe it's a trend), though I wonder how political something like this could get. The restaurants ask richer customers to pay more, so they can balance things out when some customers don't pay anything. Seems like a classic Republican/Democrat debate, only at one particular business, a restaurant.
I also like the idea of some sort of barter system for restaurants and other businesses. Though I once tried to buy a new Lexus with a bunch of oranges and they just laughed in my face.
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
The Backyard Boom - The Hungry Bride
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-01-2007 @ 5:21PM
ViaGirl said...
I think this is really cool. I mean come on, for one I'm a college student and it is kinda hard to find meals that truly fit into my budget that don't cause me to lose fit around the waste. Yeah, the dollar menu's rock if you're short on cash but they're so much worse than the salad that costs a few dollars more than what you have. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor... I like that... Even if a few dishes have to be washed in order for me to get that salad.
Reply
1-01-2007 @ 8:12PM
GoatGurl said...
Via Girl,
I hope that you haven't spent too much $$ on that college education. You may want to take the money are spending on junk food and spend it on an English class or two. Learning to read and write correctly is probably more important than eating out.
Reply
1-01-2007 @ 8:45PM
lori said...
Maybe he or she wants to be a chef.
Reply
1-02-2007 @ 4:52PM
Grebby said...
The grammar police are out in force today. You guys must have a quota just like the traffic cops do.
Reply
1-02-2007 @ 10:14PM
Derek said...
My father started approaching restaurants about 1 year ago in order to feed those without money. People can go to http://DignityAndDining.org to get a list of restaurants willing to give free meals to those less fortunate.
We live in a fairly rural town about 45 minutes from Portland, OR so the restaurants that have signed on to the program are out here, but I'm sure he would love to hear from any other restaurants out there that are interested.
Reply
1-03-2007 @ 12:21AM
alexi said...
I think the choice of Robin Hood as an analogy was a poor one; programs like these aren't robbing anyone. Incidentally, Robin Hood didn't rob the rich at random-- he was taking back money that had been taken by the King's tax collectors.
Reply
1-16-2007 @ 11:07PM
Timothy McCorkell said...
This kind of reminds me of Square Pan Pizza. Back in the 70's I visited California and noticed that young people would politely ask if I was going to eat the entire pizza, and that if I wasn't, could they please have a slice.
I'm not against charity, but what about the hard working servers that are depending on tips. I would imagine that tips would be rather paltry from the discount customers.
Reply
2-04-2007 @ 1:58PM
Mar said...
Well, I think it's a sad comment on the state of things when servers have to depend on tips instead of earning fair wages.
Reply