[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

MARK BITTMAN IS OPENING A SLIDING-SCALE RESTAURANT ON THE LOWER EAST
SIDE  
[[link removed]]


 

Melissa McCart
September 10, 2025
Eater
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ A new spot on the Lower East Side is betting that great food can be
served with dignity, minus the profit motive. Community Kitchen,
founded by author Mark Bittman, makes high-quality, locally sourced
food with sliding-scale pricing. _

Staff tests a dish for Community Kitchen., Community Kitchen

 

 

The Lower East Side has seen its fair share of buzzy restaurant
openings, but this one founded by author Mark Bittman is different:
Community Kitchen isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a social
experiment with sliding-scale payment — and a challenge to the way
New Yorkers think about dining out. It opens on Friday, September 19,
tucked within the Lower Eastside Girls Club (281 East Seventh Street,
near Avenue D).

The new restaurant is led by executive director and food justice
advocate, Rae Gomes along with chef Mavis-Jay Sanders, the 2022 James
Beard Award-winning chef of Philly’s Drive Change, whose resume also
includes Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Untitled. Community Kitchen will
test whether a sliding-scale pricing model can make high-quality,
locally sourced food accessible to everyone. That means a multi-course
dinner will cost as little as $15 for neighborhood folks, $45 for
diners paying closer to cost, and up to $125 for those who want to
contribute more, no questions asked, no policing.

“The goal,” says Gomes, “is to create a space where everyone
feels welcome, but where we’re prioritizing our neighbors.”

“Food should be a joy and a right, not a luxury,” Sanders adds.
“I want people to see themselves in the food they’re eating, and I
want them to feel cared for.”

“Ideally,” Bittman says, “half our diners will pay $15, and the
other half will be split between the middle and higher tiers.”

The New York Times reported that it aims to create 80 jobs and will
pay each worker in excess of $32 an hour. Its advisory board includes
Alice Waters, humanitarian and chef José Andrés, author Marion
Nestle, Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage, and activist Karen
Washington.

Inspiration

Community Kitchen isn’t the first restaurant driven by
community-first. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Kitchen has a
pay-what-you-can model in a couple of locations around his home state
of New Jersey. In New York, among many programs, there is Rethink Food
from founders Matt Jozwiak and Eleven Madison’s Daniel Humm, which,
utilizes dining donations to support restaurants that provide meals to
communities impacted by food insecurity. Further uptown in Harlem,
Massimo Bottura’s Food for Soul offers free community dinners on
Tuesdays for lunch, along with “gourmet” dinners on Wednesdays and
Fridays, per the website. There’s also a ticketed monthly Chef’s
Lab to raise funds and awareness for the project.

The Community Kitchen space resides in a fully built-out bakery that
has never really been used, complete with honeycomb-tile floors, an
old-fashioned display case, and a counter that’s being replaced by a
bar. There’s a full kitchen with an oven, stove, and proofers —
all tucked within the nonprofit Girls Club space. The restaurant’s
entrance greets people with an elaborate mosaic of the neighborhood,
made from shards of the many other locations that housed the Girls
Club before this address.

While the restaurant’s opening is around the corner, the project has
been years in the making, starting during COVID, after Bittman
published Animal, Vegetable, Junk​, about the history and future of
the American food system, he wrote recently in his newsletter, The
Bittman Project (Disclosure: Melissa McCart had edited Bittman’s
newsletter.) As he was doing book talks and interviews, “I realized
that for the first time in fifteen years none of my projects had a
deep emotional hold on me.”

That realization helped push Bittman toward opening a restaurant that
prioritized well-being. “Food that is prioritizing BIPOC farmers
employing agroecological principles; a system that treats workers
well, with respect and living wages; cooking that promotes wellness,
not sickness; and universal accessibility, building not only health
but community,” he wrote. “Serve great food on a sliding scale: If
you have less money, you pay less. If you have more money, you pay
more.”

As far as the space, Bittman tells Eater that when he first considered
the project, he drove around the Northeast from Worcester, MA to
Philadelphia, looking at potential places. “Last year, Rae and I
looked in the Bronx, in Brooklyn — everywhere. It was challenging.
Then Rae brought us here, and we all really liked the space and we
liked the people, too.”

A collaborative approach

Hiring Gomes led to a more systematic search. “We weighed the pros
and cons and voted,” she says. “Everyone picked this as their top
choice. We wanted to create something where we were not only thinking
about the location, but also the partnerships.”

In bringing life to the restaurant, Sanders says it will feel like a
high-end dining room “minus the attitude,” with custom-built
tables, Jono Pandolfi ceramics, and more. “We want to bring the same
service you’d expect at a Michelin-starred spot, but without
pretension,” she says.

The menu will run several courses — mostly plated, with a few
family-style dishes — changing with the seasons and what their
farmers have available. There is one menu option for everyone, with
potentially a vegan alternative.

For now, Community Kitchen will run as a pilot program, stretching
through late November. This is so the team can test not only the menu,
but also figure out how to balance the sliding=scale model and build
relationships with people living in the neighborhood. Gomes describes
it as a chance to rethink what dining out means in New York.

“Restaurants were meant to be places of nourishment and
community,” Gomes says. “Somewhere along the way, we lost that.
We’re trying to bring it back.” Reservations are live for
September 17 for the neighborhood and two nights later for the general
public through Community Kitchen’s website. Going forward, half the
seats will be reserved for local residents at the $15 tier with dinner
served Wednesdays through Saturdays.

 

Melissa McCart is the lead editor of the Northeast region with more
than 20 years of experience as a reporter, critic, editor, and
cookbook author.

 

 

 

* Restaurants
[[link removed]]
* local foods
[[link removed]]
* sliding scale
[[link removed]]
* neighborhood restaurant
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]