America’s best restaurants? The ones feeding SNAP beneficiaries during the shutdown

If I ask you to spend even more time on Instagram, you know it must be important: Listen to JJ Johnson, the chef-owner of Fieldtrip in Harlem, who invites 100 SNAP recipients to dine for free at his little restaurant as long as their benefits are interrupted by the federal shutdown.

Or look to your own backyard, if you happen to live near Highland Park here in L.A., where restaurateur Jeff Strauss gives out grilled cheese sandwiches at Jeff’s Table to anyone who asks, no proof of strife required. He serves a free pasta at Oy Bar, his place in Studio City, same deal.

The list keeps growing: When I opened my laptop early Monday morning, I got an announcement about a free to-go meal at Donna’s in Echo Park.

It too often seems like restaurants can’t win for trying, as many of us vent our frustrations on them these days. One proud sub-population proclaims that they have abandoned dining out and can make better food at home, while a second tier merely complains about everything restaurants do.

But these businesses deserve a closer look. They are part of their communities, their owners motivated by an irrational, impractical and irreplaceable commitment to our temporary happiness. Food trends come and go with increasing speed, but genuine hospitality will survive long after we’ve moved on from chili crisp. It may be eclipsed too often by the next noisy high-concept opening, but that fundamental spirit steps up at moments like these.

“When our community is in need we show up,” said Johnson, who began the free food program as soon as benefits were interrupted a week and a half ago. “Come eat with us. Just show your SNAP card, no stress, no judgment.”

“Restaurants solving this problem is not the answer,” said Strauss. “But I want to help my community in any way I can until I can’t afford it anymore.”

Restaurateurs trying to help recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program know that they’re spackling a cracked foundation with a wad of chewing gum, that they cannot come close to feeding all the SNAP recipients and furloughed federal workers who struggle to put food on the table. Then again, these aren’t people who shy away from a challenge. They knew they were going into a notoriously risky business when they opened their doors, which did not stop them. I admire their disproportionate passion.

Restaurants have had too many opportunities to step up over the last few years, between the pandemic, the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires, and now the withholding of support to people who cannot make ends meet — and it may be that the enormity of these crises eclipses the kind gestures they make. We grouse about the pizza crust because we can, and mistake that judgment for power. We could instead recognize an ally.

I’m not suggesting that every restaurant is a good neighbor; some of them are too busy with tomorrow’s outsize dream to remember where they live. I’m talking about owners with a conscience, who understand that daily life relies on a stable tripod of home, work and public spaces to orient and ground us. Remember the early days of Starbucks, when its allure was nationwide consistency, the same beverage coast to coast? These days the chain is caught in a cycle of rebranding and closures, and I think it’s in part because we’ve come to prefer the locally owned, idiosyncratic coffee shop that feels aligned with its surroundings.

Johnson opened Fieldtrip in 2019 and quickly realized that some people who lived nearby could not afford even his fast-casual prices, particularly if they had a family, so he adjusted his prices and created kids’ portions. He wishes that SNAP recipients could use their food aid dollars at restaurants, not just on groceries, so they could be part of the restaurant’s clientele, enjoying the occasional night when someone else handles prep and cooking and clean-up.

When I came back to Los Angeles after 10 years in New York, I had trouble figuring out where to resettle until an old friend gave me a piece of advice: Drive around any place you’re looking at to see what feels like home. Suddenly the choice was easy: I did not want to live three minutes from a franchise food court if I could live walking distance from places whose employees notice when I’m not around for several days and welcome me back.

Let’s stop badmouthing restaurants for perceived slights and support the ones who help, because they do so even as they keep a wary eye on the weekly closure announcements. L.A. Taco, LAist, Eater.com and local television stations have published lists of who’s providing meals. Pick one and go out to eat — and if you’re feeling particularly generous, make it a place with a pay-it-forward option, which Strauss offers on his pasta dish, so you can chip in extra to help feed more people.

I am aware that I am predisposed to value restaurants, having grown up in places that bought supplies and equipment from my dad. My perspective has a lot of emotion stirred into it, which might make me suspect to some — but at the moment I think we could all use a bit more emotion, more compassion and less cold-blooded political strategizing. I cannot comprehend the cruelty behind what the New Yorker magazine calls the “political football” of food benefits, tossed around by people who have plenty to eat while 42 million recipients hold their breath.

Neither can many restaurateurs, whose outreach makes them the best in a more profound sense than stars and accolades could ever convey. We should all respond in kind: Grab a menu and say thank you.

Karen Stabiner is the author, most recently, of “Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream.”