![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MK_Restaurant_outside-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn its first year, A Place at the Table gave away about 20 percent of the 40,000 meals it served, typical of other pay-what-you-can restaurants around the country. And customers opted to pay it forward with a tip or a token purchase more than 25,000 times. \u201cThat means that people are intentionally wanting to help and be part of the community,\u201d Kane says. What\u2019s more, the caf\u00e9 was slated to expand into space next door this spring, doubling its seating and adding a full kitchen and expanded menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scott Phillips, who was the Presbyterian campus minister at NC State when Kane was a student, still remembers when she told him she wanted to start a restaurant that serves free meals. \u201cI thought, \u2018This is a crazy idea,\u2019 \u201d Phillips says. \u201cBut if anybody\u2019s going to make it happen, Maggie is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a teenager, Kane began noticing that she lived differently than people who didn\u2019t have the trappings of her middle-class upbringing. Questions popped up as she traveled on overseas mission trips and volunteered at local soup kitchens with her church\u2019s youth group. \u201cI just always wondered why I was so fortunate,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy did I live in a middle-class home, have whatever I wanted, any food that I wanted, could go anywhere I wanted\u2009\u2014\u2009but I\u2019d be serving kids at a soup kitchen who looked the same as me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just always wondered why I was so fortunate. Why did I live in a middle-class home, have whatever I wanted, any food that I wanted, could go anywhere I wanted\u2009\u2014\u2009but I\u2019d be serving kids at a soup kitchen who looked the same as me?\u201d\u00a0 And, at the soup kitchens, all she could do was serve. There was little opportunity to say even a few words to the people walking down the line, let alone have a real conversation. \u201cWe literally had this physical barrier between us,\u201d she says. Afterwards, she and her group of friends would go to Chick-fil-A. \u201cI always wondered, \u2018Why?\u2019 There was something unfair about this system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, working with the homeless in Raleigh wasn\u2019t part of her plan when she arrived at NC State. During high school, Kane had spent several months in Italy, living with a host family as an exchange student. At NC State, she majored in international studies and took Italian classes, and at first envisioned a career in Italy teaching English or supporting missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that changed after a mission trip to Jamaica with Presbyterian Campus Ministry during her sophomore year. Phillips encouraged students to reflect more deeply on their beliefs, and Kane immersed herself in the group. She volunteered so often with the ministry, Phillips says, that he would tell her to step aside so others could help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While she was still in college, Kane began volunteering 30 hours a week at Love Wins, a day shelter that provided a place for homeless people to go during the day when overnight shelters were closed. She lived in a dorm room but made friends with people who had spent the previous night under a bridge. \u201cWe drank coffee together,\u201d she says, \u201cand talked about their hopes and dreams and my hopes and dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Kane graduated\u2009\u2014\u2009with several of the homeless people from the shelter in attendance for the ceremony\u2009\u2014 she took a full-time job with Love Wins. The work, managing a shelter that housed from 80 to 100 people a day, was all-consuming. But as she began to look for new ways to support the people she spent her days with, Kane began studying the pay-what-you-can restaurant model. She traveled to F.A.R.M. Caf\u00e9 in Boone, N.C., a pay-what-you-can restaurant, to volunteer, bringing friends along. \u201cI was kind of hoping they would all say, \u2018Don\u2019t do this,\u2019\u2019\u2019 Kane says. \u201cNo one ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Renee Boughman, F.A.R.M Caf\u00e9\u2019s executive director and chef, hosts a lot of people like Kane, who are eager to bring the concept to their town. \u201cAnd then you never hear about them again,\u201d Boughman says. \u201cIt really takes someone with drive and vision to understand that this is going to be a process . . . They have to be committed. Maggie had that\u2009\u2014\u2009and, to me, unusually so at her age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within a year, Kane had formed a small vision team. She was determined to be in downtown Raleigh, near homeless shelters, bus lines and busy offices. But it would take 18 months to find a location. An initial site on Hillsborough Street fell through, and then Kane was stymied by building owners and developers who said the caf\u00e9 would draw an unsavory clientele. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t want us here,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd as Raleigh became more and more cool, it was easier to push poverty out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kane was running out of steam during a beach trip in 2017. She remembers praying that she could find the right place for her new venture. That weekend, the tide turned. Within days, she had a salary, the title of executive director and a spot in a former coffee shop on Hargett Street. Named after a line from \u201cFor Everyone Born,\u201d a song in the Presbyterian hymnal, A Place at the Table opened in January 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a busy weekday at the restaurant, Kane is a whirlwind of activity. In a span of minutes, she moves from greeting first-time customers to restocking a basket with bags of potato chips to hugging a workout buddy sitting at the counter with a laptop open. \u201cAll of our prices are suggested,\u201d she rattles off as more customers walk through the door. \u201cWe serve breakfast all day long. All of our sandwiches come with chips.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kane has a paid staff of 10, including a caf\u00e9 manager, a chef and a volunteer coordinator. As the restaurant has fallen into a rhythm, she hopes to find more time for herself\u2009\u2014\u2009for more travel, time with friends and family, and to pursue passions that range from working out to reading. She\u2019s not sure what\u2019s next. \u201cI think founders stick around too long,\u201d she says. \u201cI do know that, eventually, I will move on and another great director will come in and be better for this place than I am. It will be obvious when that time is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A line forms at the register as volunteers, some there for a free meal and others who just wanted to help, take orders at the register and bring food to customers. Most diners pay with credit cards or cash, but a few exchange wooden tokens\u2009\u2014\u2009which may have been picked up at shelter or from a nonprofit\u2009\u2014\u2009for a free meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sean Degnan, vice chairman of the caf\u00e9\u2019s board, says guests who have paid for their meal sometimes want to know where the homeless people are\u2009\u2014\u2009and a homeless person may be delivering their meal or sitting at the next table. There\u2019s not a face of poverty, says Degnan, who owns Raleigh\u2019s SoCa restaurant. \u201cJust because you got up in the morning and got dressed and made yourself look presentable doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not experiencing something traumatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust because you got up in the morning and got dressed and made yourself look presentable doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not experiencing something traumatic.\u201d Nearby, Alaric Vines sits at the counter. He met Kane when he was staying at Healing Transitions, which offers shelter and recovery programs for people struggling with addiction. After volunteering at A Place at the Table for more than a year, he completed an apprentice culinary program at the caf\u00e9 through Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, a Raleigh-based nonprofit, and landed a part-time paying job at the restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing others with similar struggles come in for a meal or to volunteer encourages Vines to stay clean. \u201cI can reach back and pull the next man up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt first, it was about the meal,\u201d Vines says, \u201cbut it became more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n For Maggie Kane \u201913, relationships are built around food. Time with friends and family means swapping stories and laughing over a shared meal or a cup of coffee. So, for Kane, going out to eat with the people she worked with daily has always been an obvious way to get to know them better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Kane\u2019s lunch dates weren\u2019t always other young professionals, heading to some trendy downtown Raleigh eatery. They were the people who spent their days at the shelter Kane managed in downtown Raleigh because they had no other place to go. They were homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At first, Kane, 29, would eat with them at soup kitchens where they\u2019d fill their stomachs, but little else. \u201cWe plopped down, we\u2019d get a plate. We didn\u2019t choose what we wanted for a meal,\u201d Kane says. \u201cThen we would have to eat in five minutes.\u201d Kane pointed out that soup kitchens sometimes have to feed 300 people an hour. \u201cThey do what they can,\u201d she says. \u201cBut what I saw was so different than my life experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon, she was taking them out to eat instead, letting them pick the spot. Often, it was Golden Corral. When she asked them why, the reasons were simple. They were greeted when they walked in. They got to choose what they wanted. And someone came to ask how they were doing. \u201cThey make sure you\u2019re OK,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, she says, \u201cI started thinking about what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her answer was A Place at the Table, the pay-what-you-can restaurant she opened in downtown Raleigh in 2018. The bright and homey caf\u00e9 is in a former coffee shop just around the corner from some of Raleigh\u2019s new and expensive apartment buildings. The meals are freshmade, with choices ranging from smoky chipotle pimento cheese sandwiches to chai Belgian waffles. Diners can pay a suggested price, and those who choose to can pay it forward, adding extra money or buying a wooden token for $10 to pass on to the next person who needs a free meal. Those who can\u2019t pay can still eat, and can also volunteer in the kitchen in exchange for their meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its first year, A Place at the Table gave away about 20 percent of the 40,000 meals it served, typical of other pay-what-you-can restaurants around the country. And customers opted to pay it forward with a tip or a token purchase more than 25,000 times. \u201cThat means that people are intentionally wanting to help and be part of the community,\u201d Kane says. What\u2019s more, the caf\u00e9 was slated to expand into space next door this spring, doubling its seating and adding a full kitchen and expanded menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scott Phillips, who was the Presbyterian campus minister at NC State when Kane was a student, still remembers when she told him she wanted to start a restaurant that serves free meals. \u201cI thought, \u2018This is a crazy idea,\u2019 \u201d Phillips says. \u201cBut if anybody\u2019s going to make it happen, Maggie is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a teenager, Kane began noticing that she lived differently than people who didn\u2019t have the trappings of her middle-class upbringing. Questions popped up as she traveled on overseas mission trips and volunteered at local soup kitchens with her church\u2019s youth group. \u201cI just always wondered why I was so fortunate,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy did I live in a middle-class home, have whatever I wanted, any food that I wanted, could go anywhere I wanted\u2009\u2014\u2009but I\u2019d be serving kids at a soup kitchen who looked the same as me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just always wondered why I was so fortunate. Why did I live in a middle-class home, have whatever I wanted, any food that I wanted, could go anywhere I wanted\u2009\u2014\u2009but I\u2019d be serving kids at a soup kitchen who looked the same as me?\u201d\u00a0 And, at the soup kitchens, all she could do was serve. There was little opportunity to say even a few words to the people walking down the line, let alone have a real conversation. \u201cWe literally had this physical barrier between us,\u201d she says. Afterwards, she and her group of friends would go to Chick-fil-A. \u201cI always wondered, \u2018Why?\u2019 There was something unfair about this system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, working with the homeless in Raleigh wasn\u2019t part of her plan when she arrived at NC State. During high school, Kane had spent several months in Italy, living with a host family as an exchange student. At NC State, she majored in international studies and took Italian classes, and at first envisioned a career in Italy teaching English or supporting missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that changed after a mission trip to Jamaica with Presbyterian Campus Ministry during her sophomore year. Phillips encouraged students to reflect more deeply on their beliefs, and Kane immersed herself in the group. She volunteered so often with the ministry, Phillips says, that he would tell her to step aside so others could help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While she was still in college, Kane began volunteering 30 hours a week at Love Wins, a day shelter that provided a place for homeless people to go during the day when overnight shelters were closed. She lived in a dorm room but made friends with people who had spent the previous night under a bridge. \u201cWe drank coffee together,\u201d she says, \u201cand talked about their hopes and dreams and my hopes and dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Kane graduated\u2009\u2014\u2009with several of the homeless people from the shelter in attendance for the ceremony\u2009\u2014 she took a full-time job with Love Wins. The work, managing a shelter that housed from 80 to 100 people a day, was all-consuming. But as she began to look for new ways to support the people she spent her days with, Kane began studying the pay-what-you-can restaurant model. She traveled to F.A.R.M. Caf\u00e9 in Boone, N.C., a pay-what-you-can restaurant, to volunteer, bringing friends along. \u201cI was kind of hoping they would all say, \u2018Don\u2019t do this,\u2019\u2019\u2019 Kane says. \u201cNo one ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Renee Boughman, F.A.R.M Caf\u00e9\u2019s executive director and chef, hosts a lot of people like Kane, who are eager to bring the concept to their town. \u201cAnd then you never hear about them again,\u201d Boughman says. \u201cIt really takes someone with drive and vision to understand that this is going to be a process . . . They have to be committed. Maggie had that\u2009\u2014\u2009and, to me, unusually so at her age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within a year, Kane had formed a small vision team. She was determined to be in downtown Raleigh, near homeless shelters, bus lines and busy offices. But it would take 18 months to find a location. An initial site on Hillsborough Street fell through, and then Kane was stymied by building owners and developers who said the caf\u00e9 would draw an unsavory clientele. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t want us here,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd as Raleigh became more and more cool, it was easier to push poverty out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kane was running out of steam during a beach trip in 2017. She remembers praying that she could find the right place for her new venture. That weekend, the tide turned. Within days, she had a salary, the title of executive director and a spot in a former coffee shop on Hargett Street. Named after a line from \u201cFor Everyone Born,\u201d a song in the Presbyterian hymnal, A Place at the Table opened in January 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a busy weekday at the restaurant, Kane is a whirlwind of activity. In a span of minutes, she moves from greeting first-time customers to restocking a basket with bags of potato chips to hugging a workout buddy sitting at the counter with a laptop open. \u201cAll of our prices are suggested,\u201d she rattles off as more customers walk through the door. \u201cWe serve breakfast all day long. All of our sandwiches come with chips.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kane has a paid staff of 10, including a caf\u00e9 manager, a chef and a volunteer coordinator. As the restaurant has fallen into a rhythm, she hopes to find more time for herself\u2009\u2014\u2009for more travel, time with friends and family, and to pursue passions that range from working out to reading. She\u2019s not sure what\u2019s next. \u201cI think founders stick around too long,\u201d she says. \u201cI do know that, eventually, I will move on and another great director will come in and be better for this place than I am. It will be obvious when that time is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A line forms at the register as volunteers, some there for a free meal and others who just wanted to help, take orders at the register and bring food to customers. Most diners pay with credit cards or cash, but a few exchange wooden tokens\u2009\u2014\u2009which may have been picked up at shelter or from a nonprofit\u2009\u2014\u2009for a free meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sean Degnan, vice chairman of the caf\u00e9\u2019s board, says guests who have paid for their meal sometimes want to know where the homeless people are\u2009\u2014\u2009and a homeless person may be delivering their meal or sitting at the next table. There\u2019s not a face of poverty, says Degnan, who owns Raleigh\u2019s SoCa restaurant. \u201cJust because you got up in the morning and got dressed and made yourself look presentable doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not experiencing something traumatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJust because you got up in the morning and got dressed and made yourself look presentable doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not experiencing something traumatic.\u201d Nearby, Alaric Vines sits at the counter. He met Kane when he was staying at Healing Transitions, which offers shelter and recovery programs for people struggling with addiction. After volunteering at A Place at the Table for more than a year, he completed an apprentice culinary program at the caf\u00e9 through Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, a Raleigh-based nonprofit, and landed a part-time paying job at the restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeing others with similar struggles come in for a meal or to volunteer encourages Vines to stay clean. \u201cI can reach back and pull the next man up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAt first, it was about the meal,\u201d Vines says, \u201cbut it became more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maggie Kane \u201913 makes sure there\u2019s a place at her table for everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"indigo_400\",\"subtitle\":\"Maggie Kane \u201913 makes sure there\u2019s a place at her table for everyone. Illustrations by Sarah McNemey\",\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":5}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[15,274,427,510,725,742,971,987],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-3189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswire","category-stories","tag-a-place-at-the-table","tag-college-of-humanities-and-social-sciences","tag-f-a-r-m-cafe","tag-healing-transitions","tag-love-wins","tag-maggie-kane","tag-raleigh","tag-restaurant"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5076,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions\/5076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MK_token-sign.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nVolunteering and Questioning<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Maggie Kane \u201913<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MK_Restaurant_aerial-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMore than the Meal<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/MK_tokenscoffee-1024x407.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Sean Degnan<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nBy Sarah Lindenfeld Hall<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nVolunteering and Questioning<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Maggie Kane \u201913<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMore than the Meal<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 Sean Degnan<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n