What We Imagine
Feast World Kitchen will be a downtown restaurant (3rd & Cedar) for Spokane's immigrant and former refugee community to share their culture through excellent international cuisine. We hope to showcase food from several continents: a different style of cuisine for each night Feast is open -- for both walk-up and order-ahead customers! We may start with takeout, but eventually our dining room will be a hub for cross-cultural community. Feast will be a place for empowerment and small business training. It will be a place for friendship. It will be a place for fun cooking classes and private events... even food truck rallies and fundraisers! If we have space, it will also be a home-base commissary kitchen for caterers and food trucks who want to rent some prep space (generating some self-sustaining revenue). This is what we imagine. Let's make it a reality.
Our goal is to create an incubator kitchen and community gathering space, which will feature a rotating group of immigrant and former-refugee chefs. Amazing international cuisine, available several nights a week on a rotating basis! Hypothetical Example: Wednesday is Middle Eastern / Mediterranean, Thursday is Inland Curry, Friday is Senegalese (West African), and so on...
All the while, our chefs will have a chance to start their own food businesses and make connections in the community, building their own brands through private catering gigs when it isn't their own featured night. Feast World Kitchen will provide a platform for exposure that will allow them to make vital income for their families. Our chefs will be purchasing their own ingredients and renting their time in the kitchen (at very reasonable rates), so they are full partners in this effort -- they don't want handouts, but they could use a hand up. To that end, Feast will help navigate the permitting processes, provide some startup funding, and hook chefs up with optimal small business training, so they can begin building a local food presence to share their culture -- without the barriers of major financial risk or trying to navigate the long, difficult road to success on one's own.
The Back Story: A Community Effort... to Build Community
In the past few years, Dan Todd and Ross Carper have been walking parallel paths. Dan launched Inland Curry, a weekly pop-up carryout spot at 9th & Walnut (operates out of the Woman's Club). A couple blocks away at 10th & Maple, Ross rolled out The Compass Breakfast Wagon. Both live just a few blocks from the places they serve food to neighbors. And both have been greatly blessed by friendships with former refugees in Spokane -- Dan through hosting a successful monthly refugee-chef dinner series, and Ross through his work at First Presbyterian Church (FPC), helping organize World Relief "Good Neighbor Teams" and befriending international kids and families on the lower south hill. FPC has a long history of befriending immigrant neighbors, including The Barton School, a free ELL program beginning its 51st schoolyear.
When the former Arctic Circle / Sushi Yama building came available and FPC purchased it as an investment (both financially and as a way to impact the good of the neighborhood), Dan and Ross saw an opportunity. They began exploring (with several other neighbors) the idea of taking a big leap: forming a new nonprofit that combines their love of food and cross-cultural friendship. Maisa Abudayha joined the conversation and began taking on new leadership opportunities. Over the summer, she used Ross's food trailer to serve awesome Jordanian food as a pilot project, cooked as a sub at Inland Curry, and served in leadership with Feast's newly forming group of international chefs. A board was formed that includes friends with tons of wisdom. Papers were filed.
And so, after months of conversation, dreaming, planning, and action -- and FPC's generous offer to rent the building at a discounted rate -- Feast World Kitchen is being born into the world this fall. And we think it's going to be a beautiful baby! But we need lots of "midwives" (YOU) for this project to come to life :).
Will you join our circle of neighbors, who aim to create a new space for food, friendship, and empowerment?
In addition to Dan and Ross, included in Feast's board and core group of partners/advisors:
- Sajda Nelson, former refugee from Iraq who works as World Relief's Friendship Center Coordinator
- Luke Baumgarten, co-founder of Spokane arts nonprofit Terrain
- Beth Killian, licensed mental health counselor
- Matt Goldbloom, neighborhood/nonprofit organizer
- Maisa Abudayha, former asylum-seeker from Jordan, Mediterranean chef
- Tony Epefanio, president of Greater Spokane Food Truck Association
- Pingala Dhital, Bhutanese chef and World Relief staff member
- First Presbyterian Church Spokane, our gracious landlord
- The Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, generously serving as fiscal agent and startup partner as we get rolling.
- Treatment, a local creative firm, offering up their branding/design/photo/video expertise!
- ...and a network of great cooks from places like Bhutan, Senegal, Syria, Iraq, Mexico, Afghanistan, Jordan, Ghana, and more! We'll be introducing these folks individually as we go!
Feast Collective (our nonprofit name) holds the following vision and mission. These dreams will only come to life through your support!
Vision: We will be satisfied only when all former refugees and immigrants
living in the Spokane area have experienced welcome and inclusion and are
flourishing, as full, active community members.
Mission: Feast Collective will celebrate and empower immigrants and former
refugees and reduce community tensions through education, story-telling and meaningful
cultural exchanges.
What We Need & What You Get
There are many, many needs related to operating a new nonprofit that is also a business incubator and functioning restaurant! We are currently hoping to receive lots of "sweat equity" help and raise at least $25,000, which will support:
-
Many licensing and permitting fees and processes already in progress, both for Feast World Kitchen itself and to assist on the individual business and catering licenses for each chef, so they can eventually function independently, taking on catering jobs of their own and, if they choose, blossoming into their own restaurants, catering companies, or food trucks.
-
Transformation of our well-worn building into a clean, fully functioning, up-to-date commercial kitchen... We're going to be honest: it has lots of equipment that works and "good bones" but this old burger/shake joint turned sushi spot needs some serious work. But we can see its potential: first for takeout on limited evenings, and ASAP: we will be finishing off attractive, comfortable indoor and outdoor dining areas for people to linger and enjoy the flavors together!
-
Bringing on our Executive Director (Daniel Todd of Inland Curry) and hopefully an administrative specialist in staff roles.
-
Special extras like transforming the former Sushi Yama front counter into a massive professional chef's table that will host many fun cooking classes and special gatherings!
By donating toward these needs, you'll get some great perks, but the biggest perk is the positive impact you will have on our city's culture.
The Impact
By contributing your time, talents, and funds to Feast, you are making a statement. We believe former refugees and immigrants in Spokane should be met with love, hospitality, celebration, friendship, opportunity, and shared cultural learning and understanding. We don't believe they should be met with fear, racism, bigotry, scapegoating, and suspicion. Feast World Kitchen creates a needed space for the former, as we try to do our part to dismantle the latter.
Help us:
- Bring the community together joyfully around food, a universal language.
- Provide opportunities for flourishing for our neighbors from around the world.
- Make Spokane a better, more hospitable (and flavorful!) place.
Risks & Challenges
To be honest, all food-related operations come with risk. They are costly to start and maintain, and profit margins can be tight. However, with an existing restaurant building, low rent rates, and lots of experienced partners and advisors, we believe we can overcome these challenges.
By presenting a compelling story that people want to participate in, and by pursuing excellence and integrity in all aspects -- from our incubator program to our financial transparency to our food quality and safety -- we will succeed. There will be bumps along the way, but Spokane is ready for this. In fact, you're still reading this because perhaps you're ready to participate somehow, too.
Other Ways You Can Help
Aside from funding, we need physical help from volunteers! Sweat Equity Crew: Fill in this quick form if you want to physically help us do work!
In addition, it really helps if you share this campaign far and wide, especially when you share it one-on-one in a message or conversation with someone you know will be excited about it! And don't forget to use the Indiegogo share tools to post about Feast anywhere and everywhere!
