For years, Community Garden Kitchen has served people in need of food in North Texas. While seeking help for food insecurity may be daunting, the McKinney-based kitchen seeks to serve guests with dignity.
Conceptualized by Angela Poen in 2014, Community Garden Kitchen is described as a “free meal restaurant.” The kitchen broke ground in 2019 and finally served its first meals in 2022. It operates Monday through Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and diners in need of a meal receive the full restaurant experience. They are greeted and seated by hosts and tended to by servers.
“There’s no paperwork required, and guests don’t have to show an ID,” says Poen. “We want our guests to have a true restaurant experience. We will serve anyone. We don’t really care where they’re from. If somebody comes into our facility, they’re welcomed.”
The space spans 4,800 square feet and shares the campus with Holy Family School. The land was provided by the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. Meals are prepared by Chef Jennifer Brightman, who creates a rotating menu for visitors.
“I like to get out of my comfort zone a little bit and not just do casseroles and stuff like that,” says Brightman. “We do kind of upscale comfort food, but I like to push the envelope. I love doing classic Italian. I do a breaded pork schnitzel that people seem to love. My goal is to get excited about what we’re making and put a lot of love into it so that people can taste that.”
“We want our guests to have a true restaurant experience. We will serve anyone."
Brightman first got involved with Community Garden Kitchen during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She had met Poen at a meeting of Texas chefs where Poen was giving a talk about her mission to feed individuals and families facing food insecurity. Brightman expressed to Poen her interest in helping out by doing some consulting work.
“She called me about five or six months later and wanted to know if I would do a cook-along as a fundraiser,” Brightman recalls. “It was popular during the pandemic, where people would buy the ingredients and make the dish with you via live video feed and had to be done in an hour. That was really fun.”
After the cook-along, Brightman stayed in touch with Poen and did freelance consulting work. She did this for about a year, as the pandemic caused many supply chain-related issues that impeded the kitchen’s opening. But when it was ready, Poen invited Brightman to interview for the executive chef position.
“It’s very different from anything I’ve ever done,” says Brightman. “I’ve done a lot of stuff in food and beverage, and this has definitely been challenging but very rewarding.”
Poen notes that, through the kitchen’s dinner program, the organization serves over 1,000 people a week. They also have a sack lunch program, through which they feed people at the day labor center, unhoused people in the streets and others. Additionally, Community Garden Kitchen began donating surplus food to local food pantries in 2022. Since then, Poen says that the organization has donated over 72 tons of food.
Community Garden Kitchen began as an idea Poen had when she was meeting with her Bible study group in her home kitchen.
“We were talking about hunger in the community, and when we found out that there wasn’t a place where people could go to get a meal, we decided to build a place,” says Poen.
To date, Community Garden Kitchen has two full-time employees and is supported by “about 180 volunteers per week,” according to Poen, who points out that oftentimes, the kitchen runs out of volunteer slots because so many people wish to help out.
“I’ve seen how our volunteers have stepped up. The way that our volunteers greet and serve our guests is what makes me most proud.”
Many of the volunteers help out regularly, according to Brightman, who says that Community Garden Kitchen’s crew has become like family to her.
“I interact with a lot of people every week, and I have some regulars that come in,” says Brightman. “One gentleman’s a retired veterinarian. He’s here three days a week, and he’s a real backbone to the operation. He helps me out so much. We have people that just come on Tuesdays. We have people that just come on Mondays. But it’s so fun for me and interesting to me to learn their background and how they got here to volunteer and why they’re here. I always say the heart and soul of the restaurant or home is the kitchen, and it definitely is here.”
“When we found out that there wasn’t a place where people could go to get a meal, we decided to build a place.”
According to Feeding America, food insecurity affects over 107,700 people in Collin County. Statistics from the North Texas Food Bank indicate that 40 percent of people living below the poverty level are food insecure, as are 20 percent of people with low incomes.
“We’re trying to be as much of a benefit to the community as we possibly can be to people that are struggling,” says Poen, noting that a person’s situation can change very quickly and without warning. “It may be a temporary thing that’s happened, or it could be an illness that they’re dealing with or a death of the main financial contributor in a family.”
A 2024 study showed that Texas leads the nation in food insecurity, and one-third of those affected are children.
Community Garden Kitchen is strategically located no more than three miles from low-income zones in McKinney. In the McKinney Independent School District, one in four students is reported to be food insecure. Over 48,000 children in Collin County do not know where their next meal will come from at least once a year.
While those in need are encouraged to come in — no questions asked — Poen says she meets people of all ages and backgrounds, and many share their stories with her and with the kitchen’s volunteers. “A lot of senior citizens dine with us, and a lot of people with disabilities dine with us, and many of them are trying to live on Social Security — which is impossible,” says Poen.
“They’re struggling to pay rent, and a senior citizen told me, ‘We would have — we wouldn’t be eating if it wasn’t for this place’ because they just don’t have enough money to pay for rent, utilities and health needs,” she continues. “The first few things that people quit spending their money on are food and medicine, so this does help them at least have at least one good, healthy, delicious meal a day. Since we look just like a restaurant, our guests don’t ever stand in line. They’re not waiting to get their food. They have somebody serve them at a table because this is about dining with dignity.”
To supplement the restaurant space, Community Garden Kitchen — as its name suggests — boasts a quarter-acre garden with fruit trees and herb plants from which the restaurant sources a fair portion of its ingredients. The garden also brings in master gardeners to volunteer and teach people how to garden.
In addition to giving back to those in need, Community Garden Kitchen also aims to help set people up for career success. The organization has partnered with Collin College to help teach skills, as well as restaurant operations, to students in the culinary program.
"They have somebody serve them at a table because this is about dining with dignity.”
“Their culinary students come here and get hands-on experience in real-life situations while they’re doing their courses,” says Poen.
The organization plans even more community outreach in the near future. In October 2024, Community Garden Kitchen was named a Top 100 Nonprofit in North America and received a PepsiCo Foundation Community Impact Award.
“At the PepsiCo Foundation, we believe that the strength of our communities lies in the hands of local leaders and nonprofit organizations who understand the unique local social challenges and opportunities of their community,” said PepsiCo’s C.D. Glin in a statement; Glin is the PepsiCo Foundation’s president and the global head of social impact at PepsiCo. “The PepsiCo Foundation Community Impact Awards allow us to celebrate these trailblazers who are driving meaningful change in our communities across North America.”
As part of the award, PepsiCo made a $7,500 donation to Community Garden Kitchen, which Poen estimates “will provide over 5,000 meals to our guests.”
In January 2025, Community Garden Kitchen launched a program for children aging out of the foster care system.
“We’re going to do a culinary certification program here,” says Poen, “and it will be a paid internship. After eight weeks, we’ll work with them for job placement in the area at local restaurants. Having a certification, hopefully, will give them a good start in getting into job placement, and maybe a career.”
The program also provides participants with other life skills, notes Poen, adding, “We’re also going to have different modules that they’ll have to complete — like financial management, how to do a resume, how to do a job interview, how to rent a place to live and different things to help them.”
As the number of volunteers in the organization continues to increase, along with the number of people the organization serves, Poen hopes that Community Garden Kitchen can continue to be a resource to the community and alleviate worries and fears related to food insecurity.
“If we can take away the fear that a family may have realizing that there’s no food for tonight,” says Poen, “and what they’re going to do about tomorrow, and if we can take that fear away by having a place where you can have a meal, where your children can have a meal, and just knowing at least, they can get something to eat and will be treated with respect and kindness, I think that will be a benefit to the entire community.”
This story originally appeared in the Jan./Feb. 2025 issue of Local Profile. To subscribe, click here.
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