Daniel Humm Nonprofit ReThink Food Opens New Restaurant Service

Daniel Humm was standing in the dining room in his pressed chef whites, tall as an NBA forward, recalling the height of the pandemic when he turned the now-vegan, three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park into a community kitchen serving 3,000 meals a day. “It changed my life,” he says.

Diners clapped, candlelight flickered, and dinner began with a parade of precious dishes made from plants. But Humm was not at EMP: He was standing in the intimate dining room of Service (116 W. Houston Street, at Sullivan Street) a soon-to-open restaurant in a converted coffee shop and soup kitchen run by ReThink Food, the nonprofit he founded with former EMP chef Matt Jozwiak in 2017.

“In my life, I always struggled with the exclusivity of my restaurant. I do love the art of food, but ReThink helped me connect with food in a different way,” Humm says.

The nonprofit partners with restaurants, essentially paying them to deliver nutritious meals at no cost to communities. Last year, ReThink, which employs 49 people, granted approximately $80,000 a week to its restaurant partners (such as Marlow Bistro, Zaab Zaab, and Brain Food) and served 13 million meals to hungry New Yorkers.

But in the wake of brutal cuts from the Trump administration, ReThink — along with other nonprofits tackling food insecurity like Refettorio Harlem and Food Bank for New York — have had to, well, rethink their funding models. In August, ReThink will open Service, a tasting menu restaurant helmed by Eleven Madison Park alum Rob Harmon; while Refettorio hosts monthly Chef’s Lab Dinners, and Food Bank for New York produces high-profile Eat For Good dinner series.

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When Service opens late summer, it will have just 20 seats, all at one long table, for a six-course tasting menu ($100 per person, $120 with wines) with produce from local farms. The style tracks with Harmon’s pedigree, which includes stints at La Colenda under Thomas Keller and Saison under Richard Lee.

Before Service opens, the team at ReThink is hoping its pop-up dinners ($225 each) with the likes of Charlie Mitchell, Daniel Boulud, and Victoria Blamey, will help raise awareness and bring new diners, donors, and volunteers into the fold.

“Every extra dollar goes to making meals for local communities,” says Jozwiak. “You can come for dinner, make a donation, and learn about volunteer opportunities. We want to get more people involved in our mission.”

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More than 1.7 million people in New York City rely on SNAP, which supplements a family’s food budget, and the need is only growing. A recent poll by No Kid Hungry New York found that 52 percent of households in NYC reported taking on additional debt to pay for food.

These high numbers come amid cuts to federal food safety net programs. Congress passed a budget resolution calling for a staggering $230 billion cut to programs like SNAP. The USDA also axed two critical programs, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending: a key $500 million round of funding was canceled under the Local Food Purchase Assistance, cutting off support for both food banks and farmers, and previously approved food orders under the Emergency Food Assistance Program were also canceled with no clear plan to resume purchases, creating a major food gap that began in April.

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Service comes at a moment when ReThink’s mission is more critical than ever. “We are seeing COVID-level demand for food. It feels like 2020,” says Jozwiak. “And we can’t fulfill all the orders.” ReThink also lost 70 percent of its revenue overnight when the Federal Emergency Management Agency clawed back more than $80 million from New York City meant to shelter and feed migrants.

“We were anticipating a longer runway with migrant services work. The scale-down in funding after Trump’s inauguration was very drastic,” explains Jozwiak. “We projected $20 million in revenue and five million meals, now we will be at $8 million in revenue and two million meals this year.”

ReThink is not the only nonprofit turning to the restaurant model to help make ends meet. “Overall, we’re seeing a tightening of the belt in our partners and donors,” says Bob Wims, the director of Massimo Botturo’s nonprofit, Refettorio Harlem, which provides free meals in a restaurant setting to its food-insecure neighbors.

To bolster Refettorio’s fundraising, it launched the Harlem Chef’s Lab in February, a series of monthly collaborative ticketed dinners ($125 to $300 depending on ticket type) that blend art, music, and food. The next Chef’s Lab will take place on Monday, June 9 with dance troupe GALLIM, and a menu by Chopped champion Silvia Baldini, Fancy Feast Supper Club’s Leah Guadagnoli, Vita Palmeri, Kayla Phillips, and Hello Fresh’s Kristin Bryan; future dates are in the works.

Food Bank for New York, one of the nation’s largest food banks — providing over 91 million meals to New Yorkers in need in 2024 — is also leaning on a chef event series to help replace its loss of federal funding. “We have seen a loss of 2.5 million meals, which are gone, canceled,” says CEO and president Leslie Gordon. ”Now we have to work diligently to find the resources to fill the gap.”

To do so, Food Bank for New York is doubling down on Eat for Good, a series of collaborations between acclaimed international chefs it launched last year. Dinners with Nancy Silverton and Hilary Sterling and Evan Funk and Misi Robbins have already taken place; upcoming pairings include culinary dream teams: Cookbook author Adeena Sussman with Shukette’s Ayesha Nurjaja, and Tatiana’s Kwame Onwuachi with The Gray’s Masahma Bailey.

“The mission of Eat Food Good is to create a meaningful space to bring people together to have that all-important conversation of why food is important,” says Gordon. “Everyone in this sector is being hit by this. It’s a tidal wave of impact and to crisis magnitude I am not typically an alarmist, but Eat for Good is one way to continue to elevate the conversation and gain support to fill the gap. We hope these dinners inspire people to stand shoulder to shoulder with us.”

The way forward, for Jozwiak and others working toward feeding people in need, is to lean on the restaurant model and hope they can bridge the gap in funding to continue feeding the city’s food-insecure communities.

“Restaurants saved our city during COVID and kept people going,” says Jozwiak. “We are still fighting that fight.”

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