Brown Bag Cafe: Food With a Side of Heart

Every Friday at La Luz Center a group gathers for fellowship and food.

It's Brown Bag Café - a weekly volunteer-run soup kitchen, that provides all who enter with a free nutritious meal, no questions asked.

But the Brown Bag Café deals in more than just soup and salad: it's the extras that mean the most to regular attendees, like the Hartzog family.

The Hartzogs moved to Sonoma from Alabama a few months ago, after a family member's health problems forced them to relocate within shooting distance of the Sonoma Developmental Center. 

Back in Alabama, before the great recession hit, times were good, their oldest son had a flourishing pool business, and a 4,000 square foot loft. But times have been tough in Sonoma, particularly in the first few months - the Hartzog's had little money and not many friends.

So, when Katie Herzog, 36, heard about a group that served free dinner, she worked up courage to show up one night - hovering in the front door, afraid to go in.

But her worries were unfounded.

"They were just wonderful. I asked them to clear the dishes, and they said 'oh no, let us serve you," she said. "Everyone serves you like you're this royalty."

The program started as a simple outgrowth of the "Brown Baggers" program, a group started by Elizabeth Kemp, 77, which prepares bagged burrito meals to the homeless and day laborers at several drop-off points along Highway 12.

"Often times the day laborers...if they don't work they don't eat," says Kemp. She knew she wanted to do something.

Now the team makes a weekly trip up to the Redwood Empire Food Bank in Santa Rosa, where they use their account to supplement donations of bread by the and coffee and pastries from .

For less than $10,000 per year the team puts out about 14,000 meals per year, between the bagged lunches and the Friday night suppers.

The Cafe was created in January of 2010, with an eye to providing a sit down meal for hungry Sonomans, says co-founder Lisa Leeb, but early on the team started noticing relationships and friendships sprouting up and "started calling it the soul kitchen."

Now every Friday, with a excepting Christmas Day and New Years Eve, a team of volunteers puts out a restaurant-style served meal to Sonoma's hungry. 

The culture of leisure is big difference between Brown Bag Cafe and your typical soup kitchen. There are no meandering soup kitchen lines at the Cafe - clients are served table-side by a staff of volunteers. On holidays the staff uses a white linen table cloth and flowers. On attendees birthdays they present a fully decorated birthday cake with candles. (One regular told founders that it was the first time in nine years anyone had celebrated her birthday.)

For Cafe founders, maintaining their attendees dignity, is almost as important as satiating their appetites.

"In most aspects of their life they have to stand in line: they’re going up to Santa Rosa to stand in line for their welfare, stand in line for food stamps," said Leeb. "There was really something intimate and special about being served. And for many of these people, the idea of going to a restaurant and sitting down and being served is not something that they have the opportunity to do often, if at all."

Some regulars have been encouraged to come by founders, such as Pierre Fauci, a sweet 27-year-old with down syndrome, who Leeb drives to the dinner every Friday.

Fauci summarises the event simply: "Good friends and the food - when it comes to the food I'm always here for it." 

Brown Bag Café meets Friday evenings starting at 4:30 at La Luz Center, 17560 Greger Street. The program is free, and welcomes volunteers and donations. Interested? Contact Lisa Leeb at (925) 216-5881