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Closed on Mondays Uses a Restaurant's Down Time to Cook Up Funds for the Community

A new kind of pop-up eatery opens in restaurants on the night that they've closed to the public, and raises money for local food groups.


Today is Monday, and that means it's a night off for much of the restaurant world. But for a group of Los Angeles friends, all those vacant kitchens represented a resource: fully-equipped spaces to host fundraising dinners for causes they loved. Closed on Mondays was launched a few months ago at the Los Angeles restaurant Canelé to put those unused stoves to good work.

After volunteering for various causes, friends Savita Ostendorf, Aliza Miner, and Marjory Garrison (pictured above) realized they could do more by combining their skills. Miner is the brunch chef at Canelé, Ostendorf is a graphic designer, and Garrison works on PR campaigns for national nonprofits like Save Darfur. Together, they were like a functioning restaurant without a home. They approached the owner of Canelé with the idea to use the restaurant space when it was closed to the public, and she enthusiastically agreed.

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