QuickTake:

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, Party Bar joins more than 100 restaurants for Pay What You Can Day, a global experiment that allows guests to determine how much they pay for their meal. Drinks will be charged in full, but the food bill is up to diners. The event was organized around food accessibility, mutual trust and community sharing.

Party Bar’s special burger usually goes for $20, but Wednesday, Aug. 26, diners can pay $10, $30, $1 — however much or little they choose.

That goes for every dish at the downtown Eugene restaurant (55 W Broadway), including the crab cake po’boy, cherry and burrata salad and the half-pound shrimp plate. 

Party Bar, along with more than 100 restaurants globally, is temporarily shedding food menu prices during an event called Pay What You Can Day. As the only participating Oregon restaurant, it joins acclaimed eateries such as El Padrino in Nigeria and the Michelin-starred Palestinian restaurant, Albi, in Washington, D.C.

The name-your-price model is a first for Party Bar owners Tiffany Norton and Mark Kosmicki, but feeding people regardless of their ability to pay is not. The couple has hosted fundraising dinners for healthy food access initiatives, and they served free food to residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That would be exciting if those folks came out,” Norton said. 

The idea originated at Masala y Maíz in Mexico City. Co-chefs/owners Saqib Keval and Norma Listman, who are friends of Norton’s and Kosmicki’s, wanted to remove financial barriers so more people could dine at their Michelin-starred restaurant. 

The duo has hosted “paga lo que puedas” (pay what you can) days at Masala y Maíz for several years, delivering on a simple idea: Today, everyone is welcome to dine here.

Last year, Keval and Listman invited other restaurants to join the annual event. More than 20 participated, and this year, that number grew fivefold.

Here’s how Pay What You Can Day works:

First, Party Bar isn’t taking reservations that day, and drinks will be charged at regular price. 

You can order any dishes you want. All participating restaurants are encouraged to serve their full food menu and to make it “as beautiful as always,” Norton said. 

Instead of showing the meal’s total cost, your bill will include blank spaces to enter both the food and tip amounts. Diners pay based on what they can afford or what they feel is appropriate for the meal and service.

There’s no obligation to pay a certain amount. According to the event’s website, the initiative has “not resulted in financial loss and has often generated similar revenue to a regular day of service” for participating restaurants. 

Keval told Oaklandside, “It turns out, some people will pay more while others pay less.”

Pay-what-you-can models over the years

The pay-what-you-can model is not new: Museums, nonprofits and organizations have implemented flexible pay structures for decades. 

At the national level, Panera Bread operated five pay-what-you-can restaurants called Panera Cares, including one in Portland. Instead of set prices, each location had suggested donation amounts. In 2019, following its acquisition by a private equity company, the chain closed its last Panera Cares location after nine years, amid financial woes, safety issues and reported tensions between patrons and staff.  

Earlier this year, in protest of immigration enforcement and other federal government actions, a cafe in Minneapolis became a “free and donation-based restaurant” and changed its name from Modern Times to Post Modern Times. 

After a six-month profitable run, the cafe temporarily closed in July to restructure and recently announced plans to reopen as a no-tipping restaurant, bringing back prices and offering 25 free meals a day. 

Other mission-based payment models include Acorn Community Cafe in Eugene, where diners can contribute toward a free meal for someone through the vegan cafe’s Pay it Forward program. 

Back at Party Bar, Norton said she’s curious how the restaurant’s first pay-what-you-can service will go.

“I always thought it was so cool,” she said.

Taylor Goebel covers Lane County's food and drink scene. She has nearly a decade of experience in multimedia journalism, having reported across the Mid-Atlantic on dining, food systems, education, healthcare, local elections, labor and business. She was most recently a food reporter in Washington state, where she documented a fourth-generation fishing family, covered a David vs. Goliath conflict between a national coffee chain and a small Turkish cafe, and had many culinary firsts, from ensaymadas and gilgeori (Korean street) toast to morels and black cod.