Two weeks have passed since the day-labor agency sent Steve Cerise to a job site, but as he tucked into his second bowl of chicken-chorizo soup Tuesday afternoon, that particular worry fell away for a while.
Cerise was eating at SAME Cafe at 2023 E. Colfax Ave., where diners pay what they can for healthy, tasty meals.
Patrons include well-heeled attorneys and kids from nearby East High School, but most are folks like Cerise, out on the street and out of anything resembling prospects.
But they’re not entirely out of luck, thanks to Brad and Libby Birky, who opened SAME two years ago this month.
“Before we started this, Libby and I had been volunteering at soup kitchens and shelters for eight years,” Birky said during Tuesday’s lunch crush. “We loved the fact that we were feeding people but realized it wasn’t the healthiest or tastiest food. We wanted to do something with fresh ingredients, not castoffs.”
So after five years of saving and scrounging — Birky had a sweet job in the tech industry — they opened SAME, an acronym for So All May Eat. It’s a cheery place with bright-yellow walls, underwritten by tax breaks due to its status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the occasional patron who drops a big check into the donor box.
Daily chalkboard offerings vary, but the basic menu doesn’t. Diners choose between two soups, two salads and two pizzas. The fare is light-years beyond the standard rescue- mission bean pot.
Meal prices? They don’t exist. Donate what your pocket can spare, or trade an hour of service at the restaurant for your meal. Hungry for seconds? Just ask.
Business is a brisk 40-50 meals a day, though that’s not exactly a bright bellwether for the times. Birky doesn’t need headlines to know the economy has gone south. “We’re getting quite a bit more customers,” he said. “We’ve probably had a 50 percent increase in the past month, and we’re double what we were doing six months ago.”
Janice Scott eats at SAME about once a week. At 55, she walks the few blocks from the All-Inn Motel, where the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless found her a room.
She had just finished a slice of portobello pizza and some carrot salad. “This really helps,” she said. “It means a lot. Brad’s a good man.”
Scott hobbled out of the restaurant, clutching a cardboard sign with “Be an angel and help” scrawled on it.
Out on the patio, Cerise sipped coffee. I asked where he lived. “Here, there, wherever I can,” he said. “There are shelters, but they’re pretty bad — derelicts and druggies.”
Cerise came to Denver two years ago. Then his wife died of lung cancer. “Life kind of fell apart,” he said.
He’s trying to reassemble it. Cerise has skills, and he hits the day-labor agencies weekday mornings in hopes his name is called. But lately work is drying up. “I haven’t been sent to a job in two weeks,” he said.
So a bowl of soup and cup of coffee at SAME help.
Aaron Bogart, a friend of Cerise’s who has endured bad times of his own, said Birky has given him more than good meals. “You meet someone like Brad and see what he’s doing, you think, ‘Maybe I can do at least a little bit on my own to help others,’ ” he said. “Pass it along. He’s inspiring.”
For Birky, the restaurant is its own reward.
“I come here every day, do what I love and hang out with some of the coolest people I’ve ever met.”
William Porter’s column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1877 or wporter@denverpost.com.
