Restaurant Owners Share Give a Meal Success Stories of How They’re Raising Revenue and Giving Back

Pre-pandemic, the restaurant community was often asked to give back to the community by donating gift cards or food to community causes. But since March 2020, the restaurant industry has been the one that needs help. While things are much improved, the restaurant industry is still recovering.

Feeding San Diego introduced the concept of Give a Meal in February of this year. Give a Meal is a campaign where restaurants add a “Give a Meal” menu item directly to the menu that customers can purchase for $15 to be donated to San Diegans in need of food assistance. Since the launch, over 795 meals have been donated to San Diegans in need, all created by our restaurant partners and delivered directly into the community. That’s $11,925 dollars of additional revenue for our partners, making the now year-round initiative vital to both restaurants and those facing hunger.

With 27 participating restaurants that span San Diego County, we’re in awe of how these restaurants have shown their resilience during the pandemic. We talked to Mike Eastwood, co-owner of Smallgoods in La Jolla, and Trey Foshee, chef and partner at George’s California Modern, about their experiences with the program and the impact they’ve been able to have on the community in less than six months.

A New Way to Give Back

To give back to the restaurants who make our community so vibrant, Give a Meal provides a direct revenue stream to participating restaurants. The idea is that Give a Meal is a menu item, and any customer can simply add it to their bill along with their appetizers and entrees. The restaurant then prepares the Give a Meal entrees once they’ve sold a certain amount, and one of Feeding San Diego’s MealConnect drivers heads in to pick up the meals and deliver them directly to one of our partners. This unique give back is beneficial to both Feeding San Diego and the restaurant.

“What we like the most about Give a Meal is that there’s a real connection to the products we are giving. Every time we do our donation, I take a picture of the 20 or 30 meals and include it in my next week’s newsletter. I show them, these are the products that they are paying for,” says Eastwood, co-owner of Smallgoods in La Jolla. “People are really responding to the fact that they see their money going to something in a tangible way. We want them to know that we’re not just collecting their money. We have a running list of how many meals have been made and when they went out. We just love doing it. It’s a great way to give back to the community and help small businesses like ours.”

Smallgoods is a cheese shop, deli, coffee shop and café that specializes in American farmstead cheeses, cured meats, deli meats and gourmet American products sourced regionally and seasonally from the country’s best producers. They’ve been making turkey and cheese sandwiches with a side of charcuterie, nuts, and proteins for their Give a Meal offering.

“Our La Jolla fans really caught on to it and have been supportive of it,” Eastwood continues. “It’s a testament to good people doing good things. That’s what our customers are all about.

Mutually Beneficial

Similarly, Trey Foshee, chef and partner at George’s at the Cove, has fully embraced Give a Meal. Both George’s at the Cove and George’s California Modern are iconic San Diego restaurants, and Foshee’s accomplishments as a chef are numerous. He has been a chef in San Diego for decades and is impressed at Give a Meal’s mutual benefit to both the nonprofit and the restaurant.

“This is a way of us contributing to a great cause but it’s also benefitting us. Yeah, maybe our profit margin isn’t as great as on a regular menu item but it’s still a sale that we wouldn’t normally make,” he explains. “I’d rather sell a $15 entrée to someone in need. We can make a healthy, nutritious well-balanced meal and feel like we’re doing something good for the community. This is actually donating directly to the cause without the middleman.”

Give a Meal also allows the kitchen staff to cut down on food waste, something that very much aligns with Feeding San Diego’s mission.

“If there’s product that’s still good that we need to use up it’s a good way to use that product instead of it going to waste,” Foshee says. “It might be salmon belly scraps, it might be a box of frozen chicken breasts that we had in the freezer. Whatever it is that we’re able to use up without purchasing too much is what we do.”

Restaurants are invited to get involved with Give a Meal by signing up here. Members of the community are encouraged to support participating restaurants by ordering Give a Meal menu items off their menu. Together, we can make a difference.