Rethink Café Will Now Serve Breakfast On Weekdays; Weekend Brunch

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Rethink Café, a "pay-as-you-can" eatery run by nonprofit Rethink Food, will begin serving breakfast on weekdays and brunch on weekends, it announced Monday.

The café, located at 154 Clinton Avenue in Clinton Hill, has been offering lunch daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for a suggested $5 donation since its opening in March 2020.

Those hours will expand, as the eatery will now stay open until 5 p.m. and serve breakfast from 8 to 10 a.m. on weekdays. It will also offer brunch from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

Rethink Café is designed to make "healthy and nutritious food accessible to all," officials said in a news release.

The café, located near Bedford-Stuyvesant and Fort Greene, serves community members who live at or below the poverty line, officials said. It allows customers to purchase meals for future patrons who cannot afford them.

Meals change daily and are prepared by professional chefs.

Food and ingredients come from "a network of local and brand partners," officials said, and the site also offers a market pantry stocked with grab-and-go items.

"The worst of the pandemic is behind us, but food insecurity issues throughout New York remain, and we remain focused on increasing access to quality and nutritious food regardless of income level," Matt Jozwiak, Rethink Food founder and CEO, said. "Expanding our cafe's hours and accommodating two additional meal services on weekends will enable us to meet more of the demand we see throughout Central Brooklyn and allow us to continue growing our pay-as-you-can model."

Rethink Food's mission is to "create a more sustainable and equitable food system," officials said, by transforming underutilized food from restaurants, corporate kitchens and grocery stores into nutritious, culturally-sensitive meals distributed by community-based organizations.