Kansas City restaurant closed amid COVID. It’s finally open again, with a mission
Thelma’s Kitchen, which reopened this week after closing four years ago, is not a soup kitchen.
“We’re a full-fledged restaurant with some really amazing food,” said the Rev. Justin Mathews, standing outside Thelma’s, 3101 Troost Ave., during Tuesday’s lunch hour. “We’re about as far from a soup kitchen as you can get.”
Confusion on the matter would be somewhat understandable, though. Mathews, clad in a black shirt with a white clerical collar, is an Orthodox Christian priest and the CEO of Reconciliation Services, a nonprofit that has provided social and mental health services since 1987.
Reconciliation Services is the parent nonprofit of Thelma’s Kitchen, which opened in 2018 as a pay-what-you-can restaurant. Inspired by the life of Thelma Altschul, who was well known in the neighborhood for cooking for strangers and friends, the restaurant served hundreds of customers a day until March 2020, when it shut down due to the pandemic.
At that point, Mathews started a catering company to continue serving the community, and Reconciliation Services soon embarked on a construction project to transform the space.
“This building’s been here since 1910 and had been held together with duct tape, plaster and prayer,” he said. “It had to be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up.”
Now, powered by funding from local groups like the Sunderland Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation and others, the renovation is done and Thelma’s is back, with a slightly different mission. The catering business is still going, but at the restaurant the pay-what-you-can model has been swapped out for a pay-it-forward one.
“Every meal is $15, but we encourage customers to pay for those who come after them who might not be able to afford $15,” Mathews said. “So maybe you drop $30 or $45 in all, and that will help pay for others behind you who don’t have the money. Or you can just give an extra dollar or two.”
Customers who can’t afford lunch simply tell the worker at the counter that they would like a paid-for meal.
“The idea is to create a gathering place where regardless of your economic status you can have a dignified restaurant meal,” Mathews said.
For now, Thelma’s is open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The menu this week features four entrees: a hot turkey panini with roasted red peppers and provolone; a vegan sandwich; roasted meat (your choice of ribs, pulled pork or chicken); and a chef’s salad (greens, bacon, cucumbers, a hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, cheese, garlic croutons). Pick one, and then pick a side (chips or stewed greens), and it comes with a cookie.
“We think it’s a really good value for $15,” Mathews said.
Head chef Natasha Bailey said she plans to celebrate Thelma Altschul’s legacy next month (she was born in August) with some of Altschul’s most popular dishes.
“Fried chicken, corn cakes, bread pudding,” Bailey said. “And people keep asking for her pork tenderloin, too. I just want to honor what she did, put a little shine on her.”
Mathews said it’s been a thrill to swing back open the doors and reconnect with neighbors, many of whom he hasn’t seen since the early days of the pandemic.
“I’m just rejoicing that we’re open again,” he said. “I missed the energy and the life and the vibrancy that we have here on the corner of 31st and Troost.”
