Showing posts with label One World Cafe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label One World Cafe. Show all posts

Thursday, June 12, 2008

One World Cafe - Where Everybody Eats

If your visiting Salt Lake City, Utah take a moment and go to One World Cafe, a different kind of restaurant that believes in the right of all people to eat a sustainable meal. Their mission is to end hunger in their community one meal at a time. There is no set menu and no set price for the food. A customer pays what they feel the meal is worth and if they can't pay they can volunteer time in exchange for the food.

One World Cafe is part of a growing trend - restaurants who serve the community as well as serving food. The meals are prepared by chefs with organic ingredients that are available that day. The menus are evolving, tasty and nutritionally complete. At One World Cafe there is a brochure that contains suggested donations for the food and staple items are complimentary. Unlike a soup kitchen, no one knows if you are paying or eating for free or using a voucher earned by volunteering. It's a hand up not a hand out. Dignity not degrading.

These cafes in cities like Salt Lake and Denver, CO are visited by people from all walks of life. The well-to-do come for the freshly prepared food and leave a little more in the donation box. The working poor get a balanced meal for a fair price. The impoverished wipe tables, do minor repairs, work in the garden, sweep the floor and even meditate and pray in exchange for a voucher. By eating and interacting together during meal time, the learn about each other. It quickly becomes apparent that we are all the same, with the same basic needs and desires.

I am so intrigued by this concept. I haven't stopped talking about it since I discovered it. I think my city could benefit from this type of restaurant. I'd love to be the one to open it. Denise Cerreta, the founder of One World Cafe and the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, is available to help people like me get started. She's posted a plan for new establishments on her website and is there as a mentor if needed.

Can you imagine? Please read more on the One World website. There is too much good information to put here. This is so simple and pure - everyone is entitled to food. Don't you agree?