Good cheer: restaurants rally to feed nation's needy

Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 7, 1987 by Carolyn Walkup

Good cheer: Restaurants rally to feed nation's needy

With another holiday season fattening the bank accounts of restaurant operators, more and more of them are giving something back to their communities at a time of increasing need.

From coast to coast, restaurateurs are feeding the growing population of homeless, hungry, and impoverished.

Restaurant-backed City-meals-on-Wheels in New York has grown sixfold since 1981. In Chicago a new program has been launched, in which 140 operators are giving away food. The number of free Thanksgiving meals donated to the needy in San Francisco has jumped to 4,000 from 500 in two years.

"We feel a company has an obligation to put money back into the community where it gets its money,' explained Charles Frank, president of Spectrum Foods in San Francisco.

The Physician Task Force on Hunger in America estimates that 20 million Amerians suffer from chronically inadequate nutrition. In San Francisco alone the homeless population has increased 40 percent since 1984, according to the mayor's office.

To call greater attention to the problems of the homeless in San Francisco and encourage more restaurateurs to get involved, a group of prominent restaurants provided 4,000 free Thanksgiving meals at Central City Hospitality House, a crisis and community center in the Tenderloin district.

This year's participants included Scott's Seafood, Square One, Circolo, Tutto Bene, Ristorante Ciao, Spuntino, Cuvee, Bon Appetit Catering, and Superior Coffee.

New York's Citymeals-on-Wheels, which supplements the federal Meals on Wheels program that feeds the home-bound elderly only on weekdays, raised approximately $500,000 during its pre-Thanksgiving Restaurant Week.

During that week individual restaurants sponsored fundraisers, American Express donated 10 cents for every restaurant meal charged to its cards at New York restaurants, and Houlihan's and Pizza Hut donated $100 for every ace hit at the Virginia Slims Tennis Tournament.

"Restaurants have been most generous,' said Helene Wolff of the New York City Department for the Aging, noting that Gael Greene and James Beard kicked off the first Restaurant Week six years ago. The year-round program raised $2.9 million in 1986 for holiday, weekend, and emergency meals for shut-ins aged 85 and older, New York's fastest-growing group, she said.

Chicago restaurants are donating their surplus food to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a private agency that distributes food to certified charities. Since it organized its perishable foods program a year ago, 140 food-service organizations have joined, and their numbers are growing by 5 percent to 10 percent monthly. Their contributions help to meet a 20-percent increase in the need for meals that corresponds with a decrease in city funding for meal programs.

One of the first restaurateurs to donate to the perishable foods program, Nick Nicholas, owner of Nick's Fishmarket and two other restaurants, decided to get involved when he learned that 250,000 Chicagoans are at risk of starvation every day. He called his decision "the most important thing I have ever done in 25 years in this industry.'

Another Chicago program is raising funds for the Food Depository for the first time this year. At 11 restaurants guests who pay for their meals with Visa, Mastercard, or American Express are invited to charge separate donations to help feed the hungry. Organizers expect the number of participating restaurants to increase next year.

Elsewhere around the nation, restaurants, hotels, and taverns are contributing to various charities over the holidays.

Little Caesars Pizza is one of the major sponsors of Wheels for Meals, one of Detroit's largest holiday food drives. The sponsors expect to collect enough donated non-perishable food to fill a 45-foot trailer and result in 52,000 meals.

Radisson Hotels and Chateau Ste. Michelle winery expect to raise $70,000 for the United Cerebral Palsy Associations through their Northwest food and wine promotion through Jan. 31, 1988.

Radisson is donating to the charity $1 of the cost of each all-you-can-eat crab entree and $1 from each bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle wine purchased. An employee incentive program is being run to promote those sales.

The Vista International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is the official headquarters for the U.S. Marine Corps' Toys for Tots campaign for the fourth consecutive year. The hotel is a collection point for donated toys for hospitalized and underprivileged children.

Share Our Strength, a nationwide network of restaurants that raises money for the hungry and homeless, is planning a fundraiser in Philadelphia shortly after the holidays. SOS hopes to raise between $30,000 and $35,000 through a Jan. 14 tasting event featuring 16 local chefs.

In the spirit of entrepreneurship, some individual restaurants are contributing to charities in personal ways. Angelina's Trattoria in West Seattle hosted an antipasti buffet and wine tasting in November to benefit Junction Food Bank. Owner Danny Mitchell held the benefit "to thank the West Seattle community for the warm welcome it has extended to Angelina's Trattoria' during its first 10 years.