Dear Feastlings,
I started writing the email below a few days ago, but our circumstances have been complicated by an inability to place outgoing phone calls for three days, and a lack of internet access for the entirety of yesterday. Hence, no email until this late date. Based on when people received the email I sent last week midday, I have my doubts that anyone will get this before the tasting begins at 2:00 pm, but on the off-chance that this inspires anyone to attend tomorrow’s wine tasting, I’m crossing my fingers and hitting “send.”
Dear Feastlings,
I’ve already got my eye on 2026. I left 2025 thinking we’d start up a fresh new year and put the stresses of 2025 behind us, but in a scant couple of days, I’d watched 2026 steamroll its way over my naive expectations for a year that I thought could only be an improvement. I understand every time I read the news why I prefer to cocoon myself in a restaurant every day. By and large, people are happy in here. They’re coming to celebrate an occasion- an anniversary or a birthday, a retirement or a promotion. They’re coming to treat themselves or someone they love. They’re coming to shake off the stress of not being cocooned in a restaurant.
So despite the fact that there are people who don’t show up for a shift, or guests who treat my Feast family with condescension and disrespect, enough people come here to have their spirits lifted that it does feel like something of a bastion of warmth and kindness in a world where, outside, people are being pummeled from all angles, be it figuratively or literally. I feel pretty good in here, but a few steps outside or a glance at a newsfeed tell me that I need to insulate further. Not so much that I need to thicken my own cocoon, but more that I need to let more people take a peek into what a little kindness might look like.
I live in a unique spot where my paths cross with people who live check to check, people who wash their clothes at Feast’s back spigot on the evenings we’re closed, and people who can take out a party of ten at a not-inexpensive restaurant if they feel celebratory.
So while we have a wine tasting at the ready tomorrow,
we also have a plan that’s been on the back burner for weeks now that we’ll finally act on: I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that my own health insurance premium nearly tripled with the new year, and while I’m well-fed by virtue of the fact that I’m here at Feast every day, I’m acutely aware, crossing paths with the aforementioned check-to-check people, that for some people, the end of the ACA subsidies means deciding between food and health care, or rent, or utilities, or what have you. With that in mind, I visited GAP ministries before the holidays, and discovered that they’ll feed as many as 1,300 people each day that they’re open, so we thought it would be good of us to re-introduce what we used to call during the pandemic, “donation runs.”
During the pandemic, we’d ask for the community to donate a meal or two, and for each four meals our guests donated, we’d donate a fifth. Things are by no means normal yet, and while we’re on more solid footing than we were five years ago, we’re not in shape to make and donate a few hundred meals at a time, so this time around, for every three meals donated, we’ll donate a fourth, and our first run is scheduled with the folks at GAP for Friday the 23rd. I’m hoping we can put together three or four hundred meals to show them that we’re serious about this, and I know a number of you have expressed a desire to help us accomplish that. And the way to accomplish it is fairly simple: next time you’re in, let any of us know that you’d like to donate a meal- we’re sending a generous meal for $18.40 ($20 including sales tax) with the intent to give people an ample meal of better quality than they might normally enjoy. You can also call us at (520) 326-9363 and donate a meal. Our intent is to feed people who’ve been forced to choose between necessities, and to feed them well, and to take what profit we would have made had we been seeking to profit from this endeavor and turn it into more meals. We chose this price point because it adds up to a nice even number with sales tax, and we know that while some people will want to donate a whole meal or two, others may want to contribute but may only have a few dollars here and there that they can afford to contribute. Every partial meal will be paired up with other partial meals to make whole meals, and with any luck, we can drum up a few hundred meals to lighten the load of the people at GAP.
We’ll also be hosting a fund-raising wine tasting for Nourish on Sunday the 25th, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm, though you’ll need to make your reservations through Nourish so they can handle ticketing. You’ll find a link to their ticketing site and a description of the tasting here:
While there may be plenty that’s already disenchanted you in 2026, there’s ample opportunity to still feel good about things as well, and we hope you’ll let us help.
Love,
the People of Feast