One World Café

Denise Cerreta opened a unique restaurant in Salt Lake City.  No menu, no prices and no phone number, only donations. It is called the One World Café. It was reviewed in many places but the Utah City Guide has one review that is representative, done when the restaurant was one year old. It is now 18 months old. (Photo of the awkward entrance on right)

The food I ate was excellent. Being a businessman I had to see it as a business. There are roughly fifty seats in seven rooms that used to be massage and acupuncture rooms. The restaurant is next door to a massage college. The lunch crowd, when I was there on a Tuesday at 1:30 was nearly full, young, tattoos, woolen caps, piercings and belly buttons on display. Meals are served from 8am to 8:30pm. A small group comes to breakfast and a small group comes back at 5pm

The kitchen is not a kitchen. There were two standard refrigerators, three steam tables, two hot pots, one pizza oven and a stainless sink for washing the pots and dishes. Six employees all day.

I talked to Denise. Asked if she knew about a predecessor in 1975 San Francisco, Communion Restaurant, led by an Indian guru, with his followers as staff; she said “no.” Communion, on Folsom, South of Market, about 6th had no menu, no prices, only donations. It lasted a year, served good Indian food --- the guru went back to India. I wrote about it in the Briarpatch Review. The restaurant was a member of the Briarpatch but never sought business advice.

Denise is in business to teach people about food and generosity. She pays wages, gives leftovers to homeless, feeds anyone free and believes that she has two appealing business ideas. (1) Her regulars come often because the food changes so much and (2) people come all day to eat because they can eat the quantity they want and pay what they want.

I told Denise that I estimated her daily flow between 300-400 people based on what I saw. In the 40 minutes I was there, more than 70 people came through. She said “Oh my goodness, I hope it isn’t that high. My chef estimates it at 130 people a day which makes the donations reasonable.”

Denise dear, don't count on human good will, get your numbers straight before you try to expand. I could well be wrong, but I'm usually right about numbers. Numbers and bookkeeping are the language of commerce.