By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
One Table Café, a community outreach project by the outreach committee at Trinity Church, is serving up extra helpings by offering regular lunch service in addition to its monthly dinners.
”Our long-term plan was to expand our offerings to bring more people in,” said Donald Mann, co-chair of One Table Café. “The dinners were the first year plan.”
The group held an anniversary dinner on Jan. 18, marking its 10th community dinner, said Mr. Mann.
”If the dinners were a success our plan was to expand to lunches,” he said. “We’d like to increase the frequency of the dinners and lunches if there is the clientele and support.”
The dinners averaged 125 people per seating, serving 1,200 individual meals over the past year.
The pay-what-you-can concept has worked for the One Table Cafe.
”We’ve had people come in and pay us what they would pay in a restaurant or write a check for a couple hundred dollars,” said Mr. Mann. “We also have people leave $2, it’s what they can afford. We really need that mix, it’s part of the diversity and fundraising.”
The meals are underwritten by individuals and companies that help buy kitchen supplies, dishes and other hardware needs.
”We ended up the first year in the black so we are rolling that into lunch service,” said Mr. Mann. “We were able to buy all the stuff we needed, do what we needed to do and end up with money in the bank.”
Lunch will be offered most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, except for holidays and dinner nights. Lunch will be buffet style, provided at cost by Terra Momo Restaurant Group. The concept will remain pay what you can.
”They heard a need from a lot of folks who couldn’t come out at night,” said Rauol Momo, co-owner of Terra Momo Restaurant Group. “It was their idea to serve a different demographic who could not go to the dinners at night.”
Word about the lunch service is spreading with business tripling in the first two days. Ten lunches were served on Monday, the first day of lunch service and 30 lunches were served on Wednesday, the first Wednesday of the program.
In the winter, a soup and sandwich offered or a hot meal. Vegetarian offering will be regularly available, said Mr. Mann.
The thrice-weekly lunches will be offered from 12 to 1 p.m. at Trinity Church on Mercer Street in the Parish Hall. No reservations are needed and walk-ins are welcomed.
Staff from Terra Momo and volunteers will be helping to serve lunch.
”Carlo and Raoul have been huge supporters and champions and supported us and counseled us on the restaurant business and have been 100 percent behind us making this happen,” said Mr. Mann.
”Trinity approached us because they saw Bon Jovi’s model in Red Bank of pay what you can, just as friends asking us,” said Mr. Momo. “They were very ambitious with this plan. We were totally supportive of this and thought it was great.”
The model of a community supported restaurant intrigued the Momo brothers, who jumped on board and are happy with the success.
”My hat is off to the church that opened their hall and beautiful kitchen,” he said. “It excites me to think how we can make this sustainable. I’m looking forward to other restaurants that want to help. This is a great dining town, not just because of us. We’ve got great sushi and ice cream, there are a lot of great treasures. I see opportunity.”
Mr. Momo, who asks the staff not to wear their uniforms when serving at the church to keep guests focused on the One Table Café and the church, is open to have other restaurants sponsoring the lunch service so they can help the community.
The excitement from the Trinity volunteers and wanting to work on a community project that brings many people together inspires the Momos.
”The volunteers make it so easy, they set the table and do the dishes,” he said. “It’s such a positive feeling. When you work together things can be so different.”
The dinners continue to be donated by the sponsoring restaurants and served by volunteers.
Dinners are planned on every third Friday through the rest of 2012, with the exception of March because of the spring holidays and August and December because of the winter holidays. The schedule can be found at OneTableCafe.org.
The Terra Momo Restaurant Group sponsored four of the 10 dinners in the first year. Piccolo Trattoria of Pennington sponsored two dinners last year and is hosting February’s dinner. Princeton restaurants D’Angelo’s, Witherspoon Grill and Orchard Café sponsored other nights last year.

