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SAME stands for “So All May Eat.” But it’s not a soup kitchen, by any stretch. With organic menu items like “Garlic and Feta” or “Eggplant and Roasted Red Pepper” pizza, the menu means no yuppies left behind. Yet neither the rich nor the poor see a price attached to anything.

Instead, all customers see a donation box on the counter. They’re asked to consider what the meal was worth and to pay what they can. Those who can’t pay are asked to consider bussing tables after dining, or helping in some other way.

Sometimes, families with children are found washing dishes after a classy restaurant meal the parents normally couldn’t afford.

The Birkys have no system for policing their pay-at-will or volunteer system, and they’re certain a small fraction of customers dine and dash with no donation of any kind. But they also know that some customers pay far more than anyone would ask, simply because they support the mission of a restaurant where all may eat. One man ate a modest meal last fall and quietly left a $500 check in the box.

Another man routinely walks in, refuses to eat, and leaves a small cash donation. He’s homeless.
“If Jesus ran a restaurant, would he use this model?” said Brad Birky, who opened SAME Café last fall with his wife, Libby. “We’d like to think so. Not that we’re comparing ourselves to Jesus or his work. We’re just inspired by him and his work.”

Which might explain why the Birkys welcomed to their new café a dirty, smelly vagrant who was living in a park. He became a regular, and then a friend.

“He first came in during the peak of last winter,” Brad said. “He had a snow shovel, which he was using to make a few dollars. He heard about our restaurant and offered to sweep or mop the floors in exchange for hot food. He ate, and then he stayed for an hour and worked.”

The man, who they knew as Kidd, wore four or five coats to survive the winter. Kidd’s hair was long and matted, much like his beard. He lived outside by choice, telling the Birkys he didn’t relate well to some of the drunks and addicts at Denver’s shelters. He told them he was in Denver temporarily, trying to save up money to get back home to New Orleans and re-establish himself. He asked for nothing but food, and always worked for an hour after lunch.

“Then one day a very well-dressed man walked into the restaurant and acted like he knew the place. He was clean-shaven and looked quite professional. He acted like he knew me, but I had never seen him. He smiled and said: ‘You know me.’ Then it struck me.”

The sharp dressed man was Mr. Kidd. He’d saved up money from shoveling snow, bought new clothes and a bus ticket home, and cleaned himself up for the trip.

“He had made it, and he was heading back to New Orleans,” Birky said. “He came in to say thanks, and to say goodbye. He was on his way home to make a success of his life.”

Brad, 32, and Libby, 30, grew up near Bloomington, Ill. Brad grew up a Mennonite; Libby a Catholic. Both were taught to revere Jesus Christ. The couple met as young adults through mutual friends.

Brad studied to become a computer scientist and Libby earned a master’s degree in gifted education. In computer work, Brad made good money and the couple was on the path to the perfect upscale, BMW-driving monster-home dwelling life.

“It wasn’t fulfilling,” Brad said. “It just wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing with our lives. We had both been raised with the notion that we should give back and be involved in the community.”

In 2002, pursuing lives of service, the Birkys moved to Denver and volunteered at the Catholic Worker House. They cooked dinner, answered phones and handed out clothes to the poor. Off hours, Brad attended culinary school at Metropolitan State College.

On a plane ride back from Austin, Texas, where they’d been visiting Libby’s sister, the two were struck with the idea that became the SAME Café.

“We had been brainstorming on what we could do with our lives,” Brad said. “We wanted to be in service to the community, and a bit more involved with the population we had been volunteering with. This idea of a restaurant with no prices popped into our heads on that plane, and we started working on it.”

The Birkys put about $50,000 into establishing the nonprofit café, and it’s almost to the point of sustaining itself. Neither takes a paycheck from the café, and Libby still teaches at Logan School for Creative Learning to pay the bills. After eight months, they’re convinced the café will live on, even if it never supports them.

Brad said it’s a model that could work for other businesses, such as medical and dental clinics, or just about anything.

“We feel very at home with this,” Brad said. “We’re so fortunate to be able to do this and it doesn’t seem like work. We’re having fun and creating a social, fun place to hang out and build community. We absolutely love it.”