Kitchen of Purpose Celebrates Relaunch Of Community Cafe On Columbia Pike In Arlington

ARLINGTON, VA — Kitchen of Purpose has remodeled its cafe in Arlington and expanded its menu in time for spring as it seeks to bring in new customers and raise awareness of its culinary programs.

The Cafe by Kitchen of Purpose, at the corner of Columbia Pike and S. Lincoln Street, serves breakfast from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. When the weather gets warmer, the cafe plans to have expanded outdoor seating.

Along with coffee, tea and bottled drinks, the cafe serves beer and wine. For breakfast, the cafe serves sandwiches, including a veggie sausage sandwich, along with pastries and oatmeal. The lunch menu includes both hot and cold sandwiches, as well as soups and salads.

As part of the remodeling, Kitchen of Purpose opened up some space and added some brightness to the cafe. About 75 percent of the cafe's menu was updated, according to Jonathan Coombs, manager of kitchen operations for Kitchen of Purpose.

On Friday, the Cafe by Kitchen of Purpose held a happy hour to celebrate the new look and inform customers about its programs.

In the cafe's kitchen, almost all the ingredients are from local suppliers within a 75-mile radius of Arlington, Coombs explained. "One of the things we pride ourselves in is shopping local and getting all of our produce local as much as possible," he said.

Kitchen of Purpose is a bilingual culinary training program that helps immigrants and other residents of the Washington, D.C., area, who are interested in a career in food service.

Formerly known as La Cocina VA, Kitchen of Purpose operates a job-training program for refugees, immigrants and unhoused people in the D.C. area. The group donates meals made from these training programs to low-income housing facilities and homeless shelters in the area.

The nonprofit Kitchen of Purpose, founded by its CEO Patricia Funegra in 2014, moved into its current 5,000-square-foot location on Columbia Pike in 2020.

Coombs, who has spent years working in restaurants in the D.C. area, said working at a for-profit restaurant can sometimes feel like a machine.

"The appreciation of doing something bigger than you is how you feel working for a nonprofit," he said. "Being an asset to the community is our biggest mission — to try to help out the people who might need a hand."

Along with its bilingual — English and Spanish — culinary training program, Kitchen of Purpose offers catering services. Also, its small business incubator offers shared kitchen membership packages to members of the community who own or operate food based businesses.

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