Food and Charity : Soup and Dignity

“OK, I’m throwing together the stew,” says Sister Rose Harrington as she walks back and forth between the long, stainless-steel refrigerator and the Wolf range in the tiny, immaculate kitchen. “Marlene, I want you to make the salad. Let’s see . . . lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickle relish, that’s about all we have. Mix it all together, and then make up something for the dressing.”

Chef Harrington, a slim, no-nonsense woman brandishing a long-handled, slotted spoon, dumps a bag of frozen carrots into the huge pot simmering on the stove. She tosses in broccoli, celery and plenty of lean stew meat, then stirs.

Amid the clanking of mixing bowls, the sizzling from the pot on the stove and the banging of the screen door as volunteers begin to arrive, there’s very little confusion. Harrington, a sister of St. Joseph and former theology teacher and college administrator who quit academic life to become the restaurant’s chef, runs a tight ship.

Out front, volunteers are setting the tables in the sunny pink dining room. There are fresh flowers on each table and soothing classical music plays on the radio.

It’s just another day at the Bread and Roses Cafe. The 45-seat Venice restaurant, nestled in an alley off Rose Avenue, provides meals to the homeless and unemployed. Created four years ago by volunteers at Venice’s St. Joseph Center, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping the poor, the restaurant relies heavily on donations of food and supplies and volunteer help. What doesn’t get donated is purchased out of a meager $18,000 annual food allowance.

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Bread and Roses’ most famous volunteer, actor Martin Sheen, shows up at the restaurant on Wednesdays whenever he is in town. “He’s the best dishwasher this side of the Mississippi,” says Sister Rose. “And he gives pep talks to some of these younger guys. One of them said he wanted to be an actor, and Martin told him, ‘Before you start being an actor, you’d better get your own act together.’ ”

Like at most restaurants, reservations are a necessity. Guests sign up in advance at St. Joseph Day Center, cramped quarters a few blocks down the street that offer the homeless everything from showers and laundry facilities to a postal address and job training. Bread and Roses’ three daily seatings are at 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

There’s even a maitre d’ who escorts them to their tables. Only this one sniffs for alcohol fumes before she seats her guests. To overcome opposition from angry neighbors who claimed that the restaurant would attract crime, St. Joseph Center director Rhonda Meister agreed to a number of restrictions in order to get the restaurant opened. They include the number of meals that could be served, hours that would not interfere with children attending school, and an entrance in the back instead of the front--the neighbors didn’t want the destitute to be quite so visible. House rules outlaw drugs, drunkenness and violence.

Because this meal is probably the only full meal that many Bread and Roses diners will receive all day, the kitchen staff tries to provide a main course made with meat, vegetables, fruit, buttered bread, dessert, hot coffee and a glass of milk. Sister Rose even does her best to accommodate the vegetarians that come to eat at the restaurant. “I have two regulars who are vegetarian,” she says. “If they are consistent vegetarians that’s fine. But we also have those who are vegetarian depending on what the menu is.”

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On a recent Friday morning, Marlene Crowder, 56, washes the vegetables that will go into the salad she is preparing, and talks about her life before she enrolled in the Bread and Roses job-training program in commercial food service. A former waitress, Crowder came to Los Angeles after the restaurant she was working at in San Leandro closed its doors. “I used to live in L.A. a long time ago and I never had a problem getting work,” she says. “So I came down here. I kept on looking and looking and looking. I couldn’t get a job. They all want young girls now.”

Alone and out of money, Crowder ended up sleeping on the beach for three months until there was a cot for her at a shelter. “It’s just wonderful being comfortable again,” she says. “The first time I walked into this kitchen, I almost fell over from shock. I couldn’t believe how nice it was.” Crowder, who graduates from the program this week, has already found a job cooking for six priests at the St. Vincent parish near Downtown on Adams Boulevard at Figueroa Street. “It’s only part-time, but it’s a start,” says Crowder. “They are already fixing the oven for me so I can start baking for them.”

“See, she’s already spoiling them,” says Sister Rose.

Crowder laughs. “One of the priests is on a special diet,” she says. “I told him I’d make food for him over the weekend so he’d have something to eat when I’m not there.”

“What a life,” says Sister Rose. “That’s what we all need, someone to fix our food so we can have weekends off.”

Bread and Roses Cafe, a program of St. Joseph Center, 204 Hampton Drive, Venice, (310) 396-6468.

Wish list: canned and perishable food, prepared food in large quantities, volunteers and sponsors for the Daily Bread Campaign--contributions that businesses and individuals can make to pay for a day of food in the restaurant.