An online food critic gave Taste Project a big break, and now, it’s up to the faith-based nonprofit restaurant to keep its new fans and fame.
Donations are up but so is the need at the charity restaurant, 1200 S. Main St., near South Main Village.
Taste serves weekday breakfast, lunch and weekend brunch to customers, some of whom donate whatever they can afford toward the cause and some of whom can’t afford to give.
The menu has no prices. Neither does the ticket. You decide what your meal would usually cost, and add whatever you can to help those in need.
Las Vegas-based TikTok commenter Keith Lee set off a foodie firestorm Feb. 1, dropping into Taste and praising the concept as “mind-blowing” and “one of the dopest restaurants I have ever seen.”
He didn’t judge the food. Neither should you.
Taste is not about fine dining. It’s about feeling better about what you’re giving and helping those all around.
Since Lee’s TikTok video, late-arriving lunch and brunch crowds have increased, Julie WIliams said. Along with chef Jeff Williams, they helped start Taste as a charity in 2012 and opened the restaurant in 2017.
The later crowds probably mean couples and families are driving from across North Texas. Much of the region didn’t even know about Taste until Lee told them to come and donate “$100, $1,000, a penny, a dollar, zero dollars, whatever you feel the meal is worth.”
Taste is also drawing diners from both sides, Julie Williams said — customers who make a very generous donation, and low-income customers or those with disabilities, or who may need a meal for a family that lost state or federal benefits.
One addition: Taste now has a TikTok app.
As far as the menu, Taste is clever, but the choices aren’t as broad as at a typical restaurant.
Several menu items include the same basic ingredients, hinting that Taste has been able to stretch donations.
The current seasonal weekend menu features two runaway favorites: a fist-sized bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuit with pomegranate jam, or ricotta cheese toast with orange-grapefruit slices and pomegranate syrup.
The greener side of the menu offers broccoli with pasta, salads or cauliflower soup. The current sandwiches are turkey-with-brie or brisket, but those also change seasonally.
Desserts include a first-rate apple-almond tart.
The weekday lunch menu also offers chili or a chicken shawarma wrap. The breakfast menu weekdays includes basic bacon-and-eggs, a brie omelet, oatmeal or a beef-and-eggs burrito.
More than ever, reservations are recommended via the website, tasteproject.org. There’s a large dining room and handsome patio, but the seating is limited by how many servers have volunteered.
Taste is open from 9 a.m. Tuesdays through Fridays for breakfast and lunch, and from 10 a.m. weekends for brunch.
Taste is opening an Arlington location, 200 N. Cooper St.
The concept has been in Arlington at least 15 years. From 2009 to 2015, a previous Arlington restaurant named Potager fed everyone and asked for donations of $15-$20.
That donation should be more generous now.
This story was originally published February 19, 2024, 5:30 AM.
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source: star-telegram
