After Rooster Soup Company closed in 2019, restaurateur Steve Cook refused to call the restaurant — an experiment in socially-conscious dining — “a total failure.”
Writing for Fast Company at the time, Cook, the co-owner of CookNSolo (the team behind Federal Donuts and Zahav), lamented the loss of Rooster Soup Co., which donated 100 percent of its profits to feeding the city’s unhoused population, but he also described the restaurant as a piece of an enduring movement: “In the heart of America’s poorest large city, we sparked a national conversation about the true meaning of hospitality.”
That legacy lives on in Philly with Gather Food Hall, which opened on October 31 in University City right across from 30th Street Station. Gather is aiming to provide 5,000 free meals next year to food-insecure college students, all while operating as a new destination for professionals and commuters alike.
The free-meals program is supported by a 10-year, $250,000 commitment from Brandywine Realty Trust, which owns the building, and will be managed by Believe in Students (BIS), a nonprofit focused on the basic living needs of college students.
“When you look at our K-12 system, we have a feeding program in every public school across the country because we know from data and evidence about the connection between hunger and your ability to learn,” says Traci Kirtley, executive director of BIS. However, once those same students — whose financial situation has rarely improved — get to the collegiate level, those supports go away. And others, such as SNAP benefits, can be notoriously difficult to access as a college student.
“A post-secondary education in our society is often critical to getting a stable, solid, middle-class life, but we haven’t changed the resources that we’re making available to help support students who are pursuing that goal,” says Kirtley.
Inside the 13,000-square-foot food hall, there are only subtle nods to its philanthropic mission, such as QR codes linking to BIS. Housed on the ground floor of the Bulletin Building, a block away from Drexel’s campus, the space is instead decorated with nods to its newspaper-printing past: wall art featuring images of the former Evening Bulletin newsroom and Cary Grant (next to Grace Kelly) holding up a copy of the paper. There are both traditional cafeteria-style seating options (plastic chairs and rectangular tables) and more relaxed lounge furniture, like leather chairs and couches. The varied and modular decor allows Gather to transform into an event space as well, with a calendar that includes weekly karaoke nights and alcohol tastings.
“From the beginning, we envisioned it as a space for all to gather,” says local philanthropist and businessman Richard Binswanger, one of the principals behind the project. “It’s a world-class food hall, and the primary reason you go is the food, along with a clean, comfortable experience. Then, woven into that is the idea that this place is trying to do good and help people.”
Not just about mission
Months before Rooster Soup Co. closed, Philly lost another restaurant with a do-good mission: EAT Cafe, the city’s first pay-what-you-can restaurant. It had been open for just under three years before the owners pulled the plug.
At the time, Binswanger reached out to Meegan Denenberg, founder of JEME Consulting and co-founder of the revered design agency Little Giant Creative — who together set out to research why EAT Cafe, along with many other pay-what-you-can establishments elsewhere in the country, didn’t survive. What they landed on was this: “At the end of the day, if you come in and you’re being asked to pay for somebody else, or you’re being told we’re helping you out, that ruins it,” says Denenberg.
Gather represents a different model for addressing food insecurity. Philanthropy is not the raison d’être of the food hall, but instead, a vehicle for driving business inside. Its free-meals program benefits the vendors as well as the hungry college students.
Here’s how it works: BIS distributes gift cards to food-needy young adults, working through campus organizations in the area. Those gift cards must be used at Gather — where every vendor has at least one meal on the menu priced at $12 or less.
The gift card system is meant to solve a problem the founders learned existed at some pay-what-you-can restaurants, which was some patrons feeling guilty for paying less than full price. Given the ubiquity of tap-to-pay methods these days, the gift cards are meant to blend in — “so that nobody, including the vendor, can really understand that this person is requesting a meal for free,” says Denenberg. “It’s supposed to be shame-free, anonymous, and digital.”
Gather is “culturally compelling to the point where people feel like it was something that was to be enjoyed as a community, and not necessarily about philanthropy or ‘mission first.’” — Meegan Denenberg
Brandywine’s quarter-million-dollar commitment to the meals program is effectively a charitable stimulus for the vendors, although there is hope that the food hall can be profitable without it. Over time, the expectation is that Gather’s six food vendors plus the bar will be sustainable through sales and events, independent of any future donations. “There are small parts of Gather that are 100% philanthropically-supported, but most of it is not,” says Denenberg.
Then again, food halls are tough nuts to crack financially, so it wouldn’t be surprising if philanthropic support does end up being an enduring part of Gather’s business model. After all, Philly’s original food hall, Reading Terminal Market (which is technically a “market” due to selling fresh produce, but I digress), operates in the red without its own annual fundraising efforts. Still, the team behind Gather remains hopeful that their proximity to multiple college campuses, along with Center City and 30th Street Station (whose food options are limited during the ongoing renovations) gives them an opportunity to thrive over the long run.
“I wanted to develop something with more longevity,” Denenberg says, “a place that was culturally compelling to the point where people feel like it was something that was to be enjoyed as a community, and not necessarily about philanthropy or ‘mission first.’”
A long time coming
Food halls tend to get a bad rap. Critics say they generally lack personality, provide misleading terms to vendors (often small businesses), and serve up middling food. And yet, food halls continue to explode in number across the United States, our region included.
Unlike food courts — which exist as a secondary amenity of the retail shopping experience — food halls are destinations all their own. In 2010, there were a couple dozen of them in the United States. Today? Upwards of 500. Over the past year alone, the long-awaited Eataly welcomed diners at the King of Prussia Mall and Wonder, an uber-corporate bastardization of the concept, arrived in May of this year. They’ve opened 10 locations in a mere seven months.
For one thing, the trend is being driven by landlords and developers who’ve struggled to fill large, ground floor spaces in places like Center City since before the pandemic. But also, investors in food hall concepts see them as a kind of antidote to the social isolation wrought by technologies like AI. “With the digital apocalypse happening right now, experiences where human beings can share the same space together are going to be increasingly important,” says Denenberg. “That’s why we used the name Gather.”
Gather is more than seven years in the making. The idea originated from research published in 2017 by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University. Among other findings, the Hope Center estimated that nearly half of college students at some point struggle to pay for food. Inspired by that research, along with do-good restaurants like EAT Cafe, Binswanger assembled a team of dreamers who were eager to find a way to help.
Especially when the pandemic struck, they began thinking about a food hall as a way to help not only students facing heightened food insecurity, but also chefs and restaurants imperiled by stay-at-home orders.
“We thought we could support talented chefs, who are historically undercapitalized, and feed students who are food insecure at the same time.” — Traci Kirtley
“The idea morphed a couple of times,” says Kirtley, executive director of BIS. “We thought we could support talented chefs, who are historically undercapitalized, and feed students who are food insecure at the same time.”
After more than a year’s worth of research and fundraising, Gather launched a pilot version of a mission-driven food hall — located outdoors in Spring Garden — in the fall of 2020. The pilot yielded a number of lessons: First, there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea, just like Steve Cook foretold in the wake of Rooster Soup Co. Second, Kirtley says with a smile, “We had no idea how to run a restaurant.” That’s when Binswanger enlisted the help of hospitality hero Jeff Benjamin (CEO of Federal Donuts and co-founder of Vetri Cucina) to refine the concept, as they began looking for a permanent venue.
Though it took a few years, an opportunity arose with Brandywine Realty Trust after a different food hall for the Bulletin Building fell through in 2023. At the time, Brandywine received interest from two suitors: the Gather team and Hospitality HQ, a New York-based operator of dozens of food halls. They soon joined forces and went in on the project together.
Helping chefs, too
On a blustery Wednesday morning in December, the televisions inside Gather — which is open from 8am to 10pm daily — are playing sports talking heads who are complaining about the Eagles latest performance. It’s before the lunch rush descends on El Mictilan and Sabhyy Food for tacos and lemongrass cheesesteaks, respectively. But for now, the food hall offers a quiet oasis from the bitter cold for a few men wearing fluorescent vests, young adults grabbing breakfast, and others working away on laptops.
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Most evenings, Gather also hosts events, most of them public. Their first event was in coordination with the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, and since then, Finney has been planning a series of “activations” for next year, including a few organized by college students.
Another aspect of Gather’s socially-conscious vision is to serve as an incubator for rising chefs. Notably, two out of the six vendor stalls inside are occupied by immigrant-owned startups that have yet to establish a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant. Those businesses — Mucho Perú and Sabhyy Food — are each receiving a $25,000 grant from the City of Philadelphia, beating out roughly 40 other applicants for their Gather spaces.
Chefs Brizna Rojas and Aldo Obando, the husband-and-wife duo behind Mucho Perú, describe the opportunity at Gather as a major stepping stone towards their dream of opening a fine-dining establishment.
“It’s amazing because, for us, this is our opportunity to shine a light on Peruvian food, which is not too popular in Philadelphia yet,” says Rojas.
Mucho Perú has existed for a couple of years as a pop-up. Rojas and Obando considered a food truck as the next stage of their business, but the permitting process and down payment on a truck were prohibitive. “It’s been hard for us. The banks don’t want to give us financial help, because we are a new business,” she says. “So we did not say no to this opportunity.”
Still, Rojas and Obando describe the “mixed emotions” of moving into Gather. On the one hand, it’s a great opportunity to build a following of customers and expose the clientele to their culture. On the other hand, food halls can be risky endeavors — not only financially, but reputationally too. Delivering high-quality food at a brisk pace and in confined quarters can be hard.
So far, they seem to have risen above. Less than two months after opening, the chefs note seeing more and more returning customers. Their menu, which they describe as Peruvian comfort food, is full of traditional ingredients like lucuma — and, according to this journalist, is exceedingly delicious. (Pro tip: Get the pork belly sandwich and the Chica Morada, a deep-purple juice made from South American corn, along with pineapple, apple, cinnamon, and cloves.)
Over time, if the concept can work for everyone involved — the owners, people who need a meal, and the entrepreneurs operating inside — Gather could provide a new blueprint for mission-driving dining. “We are talking about having other Gathers down the road,” says Denenberg. “I think it’s very cool that we developed a space in Philadelphia that’s really unlike anything that’s been here.”
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