No need to feel guilty for breaking your diet to eat something carby, cheesy and savory, if it benefits a good cause—and no, not your appetite.
San Francisco's American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, which aims to get a smile from every customer, hopes to extend its goodwill to local nonprofits this month by donating 10 percent of food sales on Mondays at its SoMa and Financial District locations to local nonprofits.
Whether you start with a light egg and cheese breakfast sandwich ($6.50) or dive straight into a deluxe Cubano grilled cheese ($12.50), your indulgence every Monday this month will benefit The Arc of San Francisco.
"They help find really good people really good jobs," co-owner Nate Pollak said of The Arc, which has spent the past 60 years helping adults with developmental disabilities build fulfilling careers. Throughout its last six years in business, The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen has hired three employees from The Arc.
"(Employees from The Arc) have always been outstanding, and The ARC has always been an amazing foundation, organization and resource to have in San Francisco," Pollak said.
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen was inspired to implement this new fundraising effort by other local restaurants, including Proposition Chicken, which hosts Non-Profit Monday, and Tacolicious, where Monday proceeds benefit local schools.
After a successful beta program last month at their original South Park location (1 South Park Ave.), the FiDi restaurant (799 Battery St.) is now joining in. Having seen "such a great response to The Arc promotion" so far, the team plans to make these fundraisers a recurring and consistent theme, Pollak said.
But for Pollak and his wife Heidi, co-owner and culinary director of The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, this isn't their first and only charitable cause. Earlier in the summer, they joined 120 other chefs and food industry professionals in the Chefcycle for No Kid Hungry, which collectively raised over a $1 million dollars to help end child hunger.
"We're all supporting each other," Pollak said about local restaurants giving back to the community. "The restaurant business is tough as it is, and by supporting each others' goals, it means more restaurants will be able to [survive]. We're going to build this together."
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen’s South Park location is open 8am-5pm Monday-Friday and 10am-5pm Saturday-Sunday. Hours at the Battery location are 7:30am-4pm Monday-Friday and 10am-3pm Saturday.
