SAME Cafe: the Denver Restaurant Changing How Food is Bought, Sold, and Served
On the western end of Denver’s notorious Colfax Avenue, surrounded by camper vans and cannabis shops lies SAME Cafe, a Denver Restaurant that is changing how food is bought, sold, and served. From the outside, SAME Cafe looks like a regular healthy food restaurant. But its once you reach the front of the line that you realize that SAME Cafe is a place unlike any other.
The question “how would you like to pay today” can usually be answered with either “cash” or “credit.” But at SAME Cafe, short for So All May Eat, payment is not exclusively, nor even primarily, limited to forking over currency. In exchange for food, diners pay what they feel is right (there are suggested amounts of $2 or $12 on a half board,) donate their own produce, or work for thirty minutes.
SAME Cafe was started over ten years ago by Brad and Libby Birky, a couple who were discontent with the atmosphere and operation of food kitchens. Working at a number of soup kitchens in the Denver area, they observed to principal issues: 1. The food was unhealthy and 2.Given te perceived lack of dignity in eating at soup kitchens, their diners were almost exclusively those in dire need of food. People who were not homeless but experiencing food insecurity were dissuaded by the stigma. Realizing that the issue of food insecurity ran deeper than homelessness, Libby and Brad sought to create a space where all people, regardless of income, could have a dignified, healthy meal in exchange for what they could give. Filing as a non-profit, they ignored cynics who said they would be closed within six months. Ten years later, not only does their mission live on, they are actually expanding.
“Everyone donates what they can, that’s what we’re about,” says Brad Reubendale, who has managed SAME Cafe for three years. “We run off of donations. We have some that donate 2 dollars, some that donate 5,000 checks, some that give us a donation of thirty minutes of their time and some sign up for a shift and are there all day, even though they’re wealthy, in order to give back to the mission.” Brad explains how at the heart of SAME Cafe’s mission, is the idea of ‘dignity.’ “To us, dignity is having choice because if you don't have money, you don't have choice in anything that you're doing. So that way folks experiencing homelessness can order off the menu just like those who have the means to go down the street to a restaurant and order off their menu.” And part of the beauty is the way that it brings people together. It’s the cafe’s unconventional economic model that fosters a sense of community that you would cannot find anywhere else. Brad tells me how he regularly sees people who he knows are millionaires sitting down with people who he knows are homeless. “It’s not that SAME cafe is going to solve the problem of inequality, but it does provide a space and excuse for people who wouldn’t otherwise have a reason to talk to just sit down and have a meal together without there being a helper/helped mentality.” It’s the simplicity of the experience that allows people to (even if temporarily) sit as equals and get to know each other.
After sitting down with Brad, I continue to be amazed at the sheer amount of good that SAME Cafedoes. Brad ecstatically agrees, as he continues to tell me stories about the profound impact that SAME Cafe has and continues to have on its diners “...I had dozens and dozens of people come up to me when I started and say ‘I just want you to know, Same Cafe saved my life…’ Despite my initial skepticism of these wide-sweeping claims, the individual stories he tells me are truly striking. “One guy said ‘I was homeless and this was the only place I could go get a healthy meal.’ or ‘I was staying at shelters but I'm gluten free.’ Or one guy told me that he came in and was experiencing obesity and discovered that he liked kale, and salads, and all these foods he wouldn't have touched if it weren’t for SAME Cafe.” Brad doesn’t stop there; he tells me many more stories about the transformative impact that SAME Cafe has had on many of its customers; and each story is as striking as the next.
After three days of volunteering and dining at SAME Cafe, I begin to see what Brad means. Admittedly, I was first drawn to SAME Cafe by the unconventional payment structure. I saw it as an interesting social experiment of how to undermine the commoditization of food. When I explain this analysis to Brad, he wholeheartedly agrees. But I now realize that SAME Cafe is about so much more than that; it’s about making access to healthy food a right. It’s about enforcing dignity through food; showing that someone who can donate $200 is worth the same as someone who washes the windows, mops the floors, or rinses dishes. It’s about creating a unique environment for people to just enjoy a meal in each other’s company as just that: people.
