Pay-What-You-Can: Updated for March 2020

Update: I published this blog post almost a full year ago, on March 30, 2019.

As you know, things are kinda different now.

Knead Community Café still feeds the New Kensington community on a “Pay-What-You-Can / Pay-It-Forward” model. Since Governor Wolf closed every dining room in the state, customers now pick up the food or receive it delivered from café volunteers.

I miss sitting in the cafe’s sunny dining room and I miss admiring the communal wooden table that occupies the dining room’s center. This table reminds me of the time back in the 1990’s that my Uncle S. and my Aunt M. rented a huge (to me, at least) lodge in the middle of the woods in Central Pennsylvania for my cousin R.’s wedding. We slept in the lodge that night. In the morning, we all had breakfast together at a large table in a kitchen nook.

Anyway, restaurants and grocery stores recently donated food to Knead. Knead cooked the food into “grab and go” meals that they handed out at their door and also recruited volunteers to deliver. They did not request “Pay-What-You-Can / Pay-It-Forward” donations for these “grab and go” meals. They still had to pay their employees to prepare these meals.

So, I updated this blog post in the hopes that readers consider supporting Knead financially.

Knead Community Cafe’s Wooden Table

Here’s what I posted almost a full year ago, on March 30, 2019:

In January, Planet Money released Episode 889: The Pay-What-You-Want Experiment. In this episode, host Sarah Gonzalez interviewed Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich. Shaich opened a small chain of “pay-what-you-want” eating establishments operating under the name of “Panera Cares” in 2010. Unfortunately, all of the “Panera Cares” locations eventually closed.

However, New Kensington, Pennsylvania has its own independent, non-profit “pay-what-you-can” restaurant: Knead Community Cafe.

I ate breakfast this morning at Knead. I breakfasted there several other Saturday mornings in the past year. Knead opened in February 2017. I took all of the photos in this blog post in April 2018.

To clarify, New Kensington’s Knead Community Cafe is NOT affiliated in any way with Panera Bread. I mentioned the Planet Money episode merely to illustrate that Planet Money did a story on an innovative type of establishment similar to one that exists in my own town.

The above linked Planet Money episode referred to the concept as “pay-what-you-want.” The website for Knead referred to the concept as “pay-what-you-can / pay-it-forward.” I based my below explanation on Knead’s website. If you want specific information on how the restaurant works, its hours of operation, or its menu, please visit its website and / or its Facebook page.

The booth inside of Knead’s front door explained “pay-what-you-can” as it applied to Knead:

Before each trip to Knead, I first checked Knead’s Facebook page to review that day’s menu. Note that the menu changes each day. On my first trip, I had a choice of three breakfast options.

We ordered our food and our choice of juice at a counter. Cafe volunteers brought our food to our assigned table. We helped ourselves to coffee, tea, and iced tea at the cafe’s beverage bar.

In addition to Knead’s indoor seating, Knead has an outdoor courtyard. I never sat in the courtyard, but I took a few photos of it. People who sit in the courtyard can enjoy this old city’s “ghost signs.” (Ghost signs are hand-painted advertisements on the sides of old buildings. Many ghost signs advertise now-defunct products or businesses.)

In fact, if you chose to eat at Knead, you might work off your meal with a short photo walk around downtown New Kensington. You will be able to photograph several ghost signs.


Finally, parking options are very important to me when I visit a place. I am satisfied with Knead’s parking options. Visitors can park along the street for free. Visitors can also park in a large, free public parking lot directly across the street from Knead’s front entrance.

My husband and I live within walking distance from Knead. When we visit, we often run into people that we know. However, we also chat at Knead with people that we never previously met. Knead provides an excellent place for the community to partake of a meal as fellow human beings.

Have you ever visited a “pay-what-you-want / pay-what-you-can / pay-it-forward” restaurant? Tell me about your experience.

Happy Friday the 13th: Spooky Photos for You

New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jonathan Woytek and Jenny Gaffron Woytek (The photo was an exercise for a photography lesson.)
Pet Cemetery, Hartwood Acres, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek
Tintern Abbey, Wales, United Kingdom. Photo: Jonathan Woytek
Round Island, off of Mackinac Island, Michigan. Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek
Ohio Turnpike. Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek
Ohio Turnpike. Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woyek

Why I’m “Basic” Enough to Blog about “Little Women” on International Women’s Day

Last month, I sat in a movie theater and watched the newest adaptation of Little Women by myself. I already knew that that a feminist media website pretty much cast shade on Little Women as a basic white woman’s story. I didn’t care.

Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in the late 1860’s to great commercial success. The book told the story of the four March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy) who grew up during the American Civil War. The sisters dealt with contagious disease, financial stress, peer pressure, misogyny, and expectations from society and family.

Louisa May Alcott herself grew up in a family of four daughters that struggled constantly. (Alcott’s father founded a failed commune!)

My own parents had four daughters until I went to college. Then, they had five daughters. I found common ground with Little Women: a house full of sisters squabbling and then making up. Financial questions. Peer pressure. Misogyny. Expectations from society. Expectations from family.

There were some differences. The March sisters’ aunt pressured the girls to make themselves as marketable as possible to potential future husbands. I and my sisters grew up in an area traumatized by the collapse of the steel industry. We were trained to make ourselves as marketable as possible to potential future employers.

I bought this children’s “comic book / graphic novel” edition of Little Women off of eBay. It included a 45 RPM recording of the book. My sisters and I owned a copy of this exact book and record. (Ours might even still be at my dad’s house somewhere.) We played this record over and over for years. Poor Mom!

When I read the actual Little Women novel in junior high, I learned that this pictured comic book and record only covered the first part of the novel. (Spoiler alert: Beth recovered from her illness in Part 1 of the story. She died in Part 2 of the story. So, I made it to junior high thinking that Beth lived. Surprise!)

Little Women might not be the story for you. That’s fine. I’m just happy that my husband is going to acquire a record player so that I can listen to my Little Women record.

Patient Zero

Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh, PA. February, 2020. (Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek)

Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh just ended a show themed on outer space. I laid on the floor underneath an exhibit there and took the above photo. This exhibit represented one of the ringed planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.

I just learned by reading the website for History (formerly The History Channel) that allegedly at one time, scholars from the University of Paris claimed that on March 20, 1345, the planets of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars lined up in a specific way to create the Black Death (Bubonic Plague).

My sister O. celebrates her birthday on March 20. So, now I can tease her about this.

My other sister, K., got me attached to an NPR podcast called Radiolab. Radiolab used to focus on science and technology. I recommend the episode from November 14, 2011, titled Patient Zero. The episode began with the story of Typhoid Mary, and then explored the identity of Patient Zero from the AIDS epidemic.

(The term “Patient Zero” referred to the index case or initial patient in an infectious disease outbreak.)

If you want some humor when you listen to podcasts about infectious diseases, check out Episode #105 of the true crime comedy podcast, My Favorite Murder. The second half of this explores Typhoid Mary.

The Lead-Lined Coffin

Byers Mauseoleum, Allegheny Cemetery, Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, PA
Byers Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery, Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, PA. November 10, 2019. (Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek)

I took a guided tour of Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, in 2018. This tour included the Byers Mausoleum. The industrialist Eben Byers now rests here, inside of a lead-lined coffin.

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