Beyond FEEDING THE HUNGRY: SAME Café of Denver

SAME is an acronym for So All May Eat, the philosophy behind SAME Café of Denver. Located in a store front a short distance east of the gold-domed Colorado State Capitol building, SAME Café and owners Brad and Libby Birky have been profiled by nearly every print publication in Denver as well as national outlets like NBC Nightly News and Cooking Light magazine. While such exposure has helped with recent outpourings of donations and support for this unique business venture, Brad and Libby continue to depend on their Denver customers to keep the doors of SAME Café open. Such dependence—coupled with a desire to serve those most in need in the community—contribute not only to the emotional appeal of the SAME Café business model, but to its booming success.

Simply put, anyone is invited to walk into SAME Café and order a meal, whether or not he or she can afford to pay a penny for it. Those who can afford to pay are encouraged to donate a little extra to help cover the cost of feeding those who can’t. Those who can’t pay are asked to donate an hour of service (e.g., sweeping the floor or wiping tables) per meal.

Either way, SAME Café patrons enjoy a rotating selection of fresh soups, salads, pizzas or wraps, and desserts made from seasonal and primarily organic ingredients. Tempted by the smells of such great food, some passersby stop in and are surprised to see no prices on the posted menu, and no cash register. The honor system is alive and well at SAME Café; so is hope for those who come in with nothing and leave not only with their hunger sated, but their dignity intact.

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Look for other Unite for Hunger and Hope posts on more than 500 blogs April 29 during the BloggersUnite campaign to raise awareness of world hunger. Right here at home, people go hungry every day. According to the Food Bank of the Rockies, at least 200,000 individuals in the metro Denver area live in poverty. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, a person in the U.S. lives in poverty when he or she earns less than $11,000 annually; a family of four lives in poverty when its wage earners earn $22,000 or less a year. The latest figures state that in 2007, 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line. According to a January article from Reuters (In a recession, poverty strikes middle class), that number is rising at an alarming rate. Thankfully people like Brad and Libby Birky and those who support SAME Café are doing more than simply wringing their hands about the growing hunger crisis. As Brad was quoted in Cooking Light, “We’re just out to quietly change the world, one meal at a time.”