XENIA, Ohio — When the clock strikes 11:00, things heat up in One Bistro’s kitchen.
Phones light up for online orders, pizzas and flatbreads head to the oven one after another, and chef Greg Shaffer feels back at home as he pulls ticket after ticket, just as he would at any other restaurant he’s worked in his decades-long career.
“I stopped counting after 20 years,” he joked.
Yet, despite all his experience in commercial kitchens, walking into One Bistro on his first day was something new.
“I had a rough idea of their mission,” he said. “But that just doesn’t really give you the reality of it until you experience it.”
The faith-based nonprofit kitchen runs on a pay-what-you-can and pay-it-forward model. It’s open to anyone in the community who wants a restaurant-quality meal, but the price is up to the customer.
Those who can, pay the suggested price on the menu, which can range from around $6 to $9. Others can choose to pay their meal forward, covering the cost of their own food and donating an extra $6 toward someone else’s lunch. Still, others eat for free, promising at least one hour of volunteer work to the nonprofit in the near future.
“It just gives us a chance to build a relationship with them,” Robert Adamson, the restaurant’s founder, said. “Anyone can come in and get served with love and dignity.”
A longtime restaurant worker himself, Adamson said he started noticing just how many in the community seemed shut out from the experience of the good food and camaraderie he tried to provide.
“Doing a lot of street ministry, I didn’t see a lot of the people I saw on the streets being able to go to a restaurant and having a good hot meal,” he said.
One Bistro was his answer. He founded the first café in Miamisburg in 2012, later opening Xenia’s location in 2016, and he was impressed by how quickly the model caught on.
In its ten years of operation, the nonprofit’s served nearly 93,000 free meals and is averaging nearly 1,000 a month for 2020.
Shaffer joined the staff about five years ago, looking for a kitchen job where he felt he could make a difference.
“They were praying for somebody in a position like me and I was praying for where God wanted me and this is where I came,” he said.
Besides One Bistro’s four lunch services every week, the nonprofit also offers a free community meal every Wednesday night, in the hopes their service can not only serve as a resource for those looking for a place to eat, but also a way to connect the community.
“We’re not just feeding people,” Shaffer said. “What they support and what they do through the nonprofit side is different.”