The Community Kitchen
at Eva's Village

 Important Message to our Community Kitchen guests during the coronavirus outbreak

Important Notice About Meals

Beginning in March , we transitioned to  meals to-go in order to protect the health and safety of our guests, residents and staff. Meals to go are distributed at 12 p.m. and 1 p.m., Monday-Friday. Extra meals are given on Fridays so people will have enough through the weekend. This change is only temporary, in an effort to protect the health of our community members by limiting large group gatherings. Every day brings new challenges, but we are deeply committed to continuing our care and services for those who need us most. We look forward to coming together for our daily meals again in the near future.

Please visit our website's homepage for updates or follow us on one of our social media channels. We're on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Community Kitchen Hours      All are welcome

Breakfast: 8:30 - 10 am, weekdays
Lunch: 12:00 pm, 7 days a week
                    1:00 pm 7 days a week

Eva's Kitchen was founded in 1982 to help feed the hungry. The first meal of hot dogs and beans was served to 30 hungry individuals in the basement of St. John’s Cathedral, in Paterson. In the early 1990's an expanded kitchen was built on Main Street with capacity for 240 people. To help feed the growing number of homeless and working poor, an expansion in 2011 increased the capacity to 400.

The Kitchen now serves a nutritious breakfast and lunch for up to 400 individuals, and is open 365 days a year. In addition to the meals served to guests in our Kitchen, daily meals are prepared for the 350 men, women and mothers with children who reside in our recovery and sheltering programs, amounting to 1,300 meals each day. 

Guests dining in our Community Kitchen do not stand in line to be served. We seat them at tables and serve them with dignity and respect. We serve all who come; we turn nobody away. During the extreme cold of winter and the summer months of July and August, the number of homeless and working poor needing a meal increase and another partial seating is added. Additional seating is provided to help feed the hungry on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Outside the dining hall is a large courtyard that is an area of social interaction. It is a safe and welcoming place closed off from the busy streets of Paterson. As relationships form, clients come to understand the many homeless, addiction treatment & health care resources available to them and may choose to take the next step, whether it is shelter, substance abuse treatment or free medical care.

Volunteers who help feed the hungry are an essential ingredient in the Community Kitchen, and we welcome the participation of individuals as well as local businesses, religious, civic and educational groups.