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Aspen's Meat & Cheese, Closed To In-House Diners, Doles Out Free Soup On Thursdays

Eleanor Bennett

Last Thursday, Meat & Cheese owner Wendy Mitchell stood outside her restaurant wearing latex gloves and serving free, vegan squash soup and buttermilk biscuits to passersby. Mitchell calls this "Bonnie's Soup Kitchen," named for the manager who came up with the idea. 

“She just had this idea that there’s so many restaurant people that are immediately unemployed, that we should do something for the community because so many of our customers are restaurant people, industry people,” Mitchell said. 

The downtown Aspen restaurant offers free soup every Thursday, starting at noon until they run out. Meat & Cheese welcomed everybody who came by, including a local real estate broker picking up soup for her neighbors and two former Aspen Skiing Company employees who no longer have work. 

“Last week we gave out about 135 soups before we ran out and we made a little more this week, so it might go a little bit longer,” Mitchell said. 

 

 

 

Eleanor is an award-winning journalist and "Morning Edition" anchor. She has reported on a wide range of topics in her community, including the impacts of federal immigration policies on local DACA recipients, creative efforts to solve the valley's affordable housing crisis, and hungry goats fighting climate change across the West through targeted grazing. Connecting with people from all walks of life and creating empathic spaces for them to tell their stories fuels her work.