Her Restaurant Breaks All the Rules, and Thrives

Denise Cerreta gave up her successful acupuncture practice to open a pay-what-you-want restaurant that helps feed the world. Here’s how she broke all the rules and came out ahead

Denise Cerreta still remembers how her mouth watered when, as a child of eight, she gazed longingly at heaps of plump strawberries at a farmers’ market in Atlanta. She asked her dad if she could have some, but he said no, they were too expensive. As the family returned to its car, a young man bounded up to her father, holding out a pint of the sweet-scented fruit. “Sir, I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “I bought these for your daughter.”

That stranger’s impulsive act of kindness made a lasting impression on Cerreta. Forty years later, at age 47, she’s on a similar mission. As founder of One World Everybody Eats, a pay-what-you-want restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cerreta is determined to change the way restaurants do business and to bring delicious, healthful food to everyone, even those who can’t pay. Although skeptics told her that a restaurant based on customer donations could never survive (“These are liberals playing games with the reality known as life,” said Rush Limbaugh of the eatery), the enterprise is debt-free and will have its sixth anniversary in June.

Located in a converted two-story red brick building not far from the University of Utah, One World Everybody Eats serves organic, freshly prepared dishes, buffet style, in four cozy dining areas decorated with bright hangings and hand-carved statues from India. The menu changes every day and includes options that impress even the most sophisticated eaters. A hand-lettered notice asks customers to “donate a fair, respectable amount” similar to what they’d pay in other restaurants. Anyone too strapped to make even the most minimal payment can volunteer to wash dishes, cut vegetables, clean up or garden (one hour = one meal), and rice and dal are always free. Since the recession took hold, the number of customers earning meals through volunteering has doubled, but the average donation has remained at a steady $8 to $10 per meal, and the 60-seat eatery is attracting as many paying diners as in the past.

Here, tourists, judges, businessmen and even the mayor of Salt Lake City, Ralph Becker, dine alongside single mothers, laborers, college students and street people. Cerreta says she’s seen lasting friendships form as strangers sit down together at tables seating two to six people. When they go to the buffet counter to be served, there’s only one rule: Don’t ask for more than you can eat. Food is never wasted, because every scrap is either consumed or composted. (Meat bones are thrown in the trash only after being boiled for soup.) That’s unheard of at conventional restaurants, where diners’ leftovers are thrown away.