Critic
Dine Out, Do Good: The Rise in Charitable Restaurants
A restaurant model is being used to train refugees, at-risk kids, and veterans.
Illustration: Claire Merchlinsky
Anyone who dines out regularly knows the dread-inducing spiel—usually about small plates and sharing—that follows a server asking: “Have you dined with us before?”
But at Emma’s Torch, a cozy restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y., the question is a prelude to a very different kind of advisory. “We’re a nonprofit restaurant,” began my server on a recent evening, “that provides culinary training and job placement services to refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking. Every dish is created by our students.”