These 30 local restaurants will be paid to feed Sacramento’s low-income seniors
The City of Sacramento announced Wednesday morning the first 30 local restaurants and catering companies chosen for the statewide Great Plates Delivered program, which will sponsor meals for low-income seniors over the next month.
Each participating restaurant or catering company will prepare 50 precooked meal kits containing breakfast, lunch and dinner. The kits will be delivered three or four days per week through June 10. Nearly 1,000 Sacramento seniors have signed up for Great Plates Delivered’s free meals so far and the city has the funding to eventually feed 3,500, generating income for 140 local restaurants in the process. Call 311 or 916-330-1444 to enroll.
The 30 Sacramento restaurants and catering companies selected out of 200-plus applicants are:
▪ A Taste Above
▪ Andy Nguyen’s Vegetarian Restaurant
▪ Binchoyaki
▪ Broderick Roadhouse
▪ Burgess Brothers/Avengers Hospitality
▪ Caballo Blanco Restaurante
▪ Camden Spit & Larder
▪ Canon
▪ Colo’s Soul Food & Seafood
▪ de Vere’s Irish Pub
▪ Device Brewing Co.
▪ Dos Coyotes Border Cafe
▪ Falafel Corner
▪ Fixins Soul Kitchen
▪ Haveli Grill
▪ Hawks Provisions & Public House
▪ Jimmy’s Soul Food & Hmong Cuisine
▪ Koshi Ramen Bar
▪ Louisiana Heaven
▪ Momo’s Meat Market
▪ Mulvaney’s B&L
▪ Pho Ru Vietnamese Restaurant
▪ Plates Cafe & Catering
▪ Purple Pig Eats
▪ Queen Sheba
▪ Rossi Catering
▪ Sacramento Catering Collective
▪ Selland’s Market-Cafe
▪ Viet Ha Noodles & Grill
▪ Woodlake Tavern
Nine of the restaurants selected are women-owned and 17 are owned by minorities, including six with black owners. The city was previously criticized for awarding more than half its $1 million in zero-interest loans to midtown and downtown businesses.
“We were very intentional about ensuring the (list of) participating restaurants included our diverse neighborhoods’ restaurants,” Steinberg said. “There are so many great places in these neighborhoods that were started by small business owners, a number of them from diverse communities.”
Though the City of Sacramento will initially pay $4 million to run Great Plates Delivered, FEMA will reimburse $3 million of that and the state will pick up another 19 percent, leaving the city responsible for about $250,000. Of the $66 spent on each meal kit, $60 will go to the restaurants, netting each $3,000 in revenue per day. The remaining $6 will be used for packaging, administration and to hold in reserve for potential transportation needs.
Mulvaney’s B&L, Canon, Binchoyaki, Allora and Camden Spit & Larder launched a similar program called Family Meal that has donated more than 50,000 meals since March to Sacramento residents in need, focusing especially on children and seniors. Canon chef Brad Cecchi and Mulvaney’s Patrick Mulvaney will be paid $8,000 each for spending 25 hours a week for the next four weeks advising and mentoring other restaurants.
Queen Sheba owner Zion Tadesse unsuccessfully applied for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans, she said. Businesses like the 17-year-old Ethiopian restaurant on Broadway aren’t often selected for these kinds of programs, she said, so inclusion in Great Plates Delivered came as a pleasant surprise.
“$60 for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for me that is going to be a huge support,” Tadesse said. “Even if it’s only four or three days a week, whatever I can get, it will keep me going. Even when (the program) is over, I can keep on going.”
Great Plates Delivered participants must be 65 or older, or 60+ with a preexisting condition that makes them immunocompromised, and can’t have an income higher than $74,900 or $100,000 for a two-person household. They must also live alone or with one other qualified person, and can’t already receive federal or state food benefits such as CalFresh or Meals On Wheels.
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 10:30 AM.