But for many restaurant workers, a family meal helps to supplement an already tight budget.
When the pandemic hit, Amanda and Isaac Toups kept their Toups’ Meatery running as best they could, pivoting to takeout like many restaurants across the country. Their staff family meals continued as usual, but soon, staffers were asking if they could take a little extra home for friends and family.
“In 2020, we had to lay off our servers and cooks but told them to come back for family meals,” Amanda Toups says of the start of Toups’ Family Meal. “On the first day, folks came in and one mentioned a roommate had been laid off and asked if the roommate could get a meal. Isaac said yes and we sent a few extra servings home. The next day, there were more friends laid off and Isaac said ‘No problem.’ We quickly realized just how food insecure New Orleans was. Within three or four days, we had 500 people and a line wrapped around the block.”
“And that was just the service industry! By day five, the first mom reached out to me and said, ‘You don’t need to feed me, but can you feed my kids?’ So we starting feeding everybody.”
A bigger task at hand
The operation escalated quickly. Amanda reached out to World Central Kitchen and asked them to help with the heavy lift. Just as she was worried about how to fund it all, WCK stepped in and offered assistance, initially for a two-week stay that turned into seven months. Working as a team to feed New Orleans – Toups’ assisting with WCK’s mission and WCK funds supporting the Toups’ mission – they put out 100,000 meals over the course of eighteen months.
“We came out of lockdown and went back to life and the restaurant,” says Toups. “And then Hurricane Ida came along and we picked it back up again and then back to business as usual. Then in February 2024, our governor was loud about declining funds being offered to feed kids during the summer and I was angry. Isaac said, ‘Let’s bring it back.’”
“Our children miss 40 meals a month during summer – five breakfasts and lunches at school – and under the funding offered, they were only giving $40 a month per child. A dollar a meal. You can’t even go to McDonald’s and get that.”
Shifting Toups’ Family Meal to a full-time effort took an even greater lift. With the help of general manager Molly Maguire and chef Shalika Sprowal, they worked to gain a better understanding how they could best help families in need.
“We couldn’t send them savory pudding or brisket gumbo because we were pirates the first time around,” Amanda shares. “We were literally pirating whatever we could find and that’s what we served. This time, it’s about the kids. We need to understand the problem better.”
So Toups’ Family Meal set up an Easter dinner service, offering grocery boxes for families to cook at home and fed 2000 New Orleanians.
“We listened to those folks about what they need – hot meals, cold meals, ingredients, whatever,” Toups says. “We found that people needed prepared foods because parents are working and children needed to be able to make meals without using the stove.”
Within 24 hours of launching the summer meal service, Toups’ Family Meal had over 1100 children across the area signed up – and quickly realized it was more than their restaurant kitchen could handle. Focusing on just the Orleans Parish, they settled on 533 children across 200 families along 45 different routes, supplementing half the meals missed during school summer break. Raising an army of volunteers – primarily teachers and retirees – Amanda’s team delivered 70,500 meals between June 6 and August 15, 2024.
“I was shaking the can every week just to try to raise the money we needed,” Toups shares. “We managed to raise $400,000 from June to December between 1500 unique donors.”
Hunger doesn’t stop at the end of the summer
The meal support didn’t stop when school began. In October, Toups’ Family Meal delivered 600 pumpkins and 1200 pizzas to families in the area. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, they distributed 2000 grocery boxes. For Valentine’s Day, they sent cookies, decorations and hot chocolate. For Easter, another 2000 grocery boxes.
“Now we’re facing the big haul again – and it’s money,” says Amanda. “Our operation costs are a little higher because it’s a restaurant and I have chefs cooking the meals. We just can’t have volunteers cooking at the restaurant because of health and safety laws. It’s a higher cost but a higher quality of food preparation.”
“With the new administration, there are so many cuts. It’s brutal out there. We need human help. Foundations, private donors, partnerships, whatever we can get. I’m asking everybody. With $350,000 we can cook and deliver 70,000 meals.”
At the suggestion of a friend, Amanda and her team put together a fundraising event last year – Toups’ Fest – to help raise money for the organization’s operations. This year’s Toups’ Fest, coming up on June 22 at The Broadside in New Orleans, aims to raise another batch of critical funding.
“Last year, we had bands, an auction, food trucks. We sold 500 tickets – I couldn’t believe it,” says Toups. “I got a whiskey sponsor. People stayed all night. I reached out to every one of those same people and said we wanted to do it again, and everyone was like, ‘No problem.’ So June 22 is Toups’ Fest 2025 with Lost Bayou Ramblers headlining. The Broadside has opened a kitchen so we’ll have food. A snowball stand. An auction. It’s going to be great.”
Head to the Toups’ Family Meal for more information and to donate funds to feed New Orleans families year round.
~Jennifer Matthewson
*Photos: Toups’ Family Meal