Wichita-area restaurants offer specials for those in need during shutdown

Some cafes in Wichita are taking it upon themselves to help make sure everybody eats during the government shutdown.

Several businesses have begun to offer low-cost specials, as well as other offers to raise money or donate goods to area food banks.

That includes Sunflour Cafe & Collective in west Wichita. The cafe is currently offering tomato bisque or its spiced autumn soup for $2. Visitors can also get a free cookie if they bring non-perishable foods to be donated to local food banks.

“You shouldn’t be stuck in your home and not able to go out and enjoy an experience because you don’t have the means to,” Co-owner Nicole Mullen said.

For Mullen, food aid is personal.

Growing up, Mullen was part of the foster care system. Shortly after she aged out of foster care, she became pregnant and relied on SNAP benefits to feed her and her family.

“Without it, I don’t know what I would have done,” she said.

While November began with much uncertainty about SNAP benefits, Gov. Laura Kelly on Friday announced that beneficiaries should receive their benefits by end of the day.

But word of mouth about the specials has been getting the news out.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, west Wichita resident Wilma Stone stopped in the Sunflour Cafe after hearing about the special through an acquaintance. It was also her first visit to Sunflour.

“I’ve always wondered what is at this restaurant,” Stone said.

She’s said she posted about the cafe and the soup special online to help spread the word more.

“You got to support your local restaurants, especially the ones that are just starting up and trying to help the community,” Stone said.

Further east, newly opened Riverside Bohemian, in the former R Coffeehouse spot, will also begin offering a soup special starting next week.

For 99 cents, customers can receive a cup of pumpkin soup, a recipe that co-owner Sarah Jane Sovereign-Gates said helped her during a hard time in her life.

“I went to my friend’s kitchen and she had on this pumpkin soup,” she said, “and I was just boo-hooing at the table over one thing or another, and she’s like, ‘shut up and eat this pumpkin soup, like it’ll save your life.’ And it did.”

It’s also allowing customers who might have some extra cash to “pay it forward” so it can offer the soup for free to those in need.

Like Mullen, Sovereign-Gates said SNAP cuts are a personal issue to her.

Sixteen years ago, while she was living in Florida, Sovereign-Gates was pregnant with her third boy and receiving SNAP benefits to feed her family.

During that time, she said, she’d take her family to an Irish pub that served bean soup for 99 cents, which is part of what inspired her to offer the special.

Sovereign-Gates says it’s just part of being a good neighbor.

“I think politics aside, I think personal feelings aside, you could just be a neighbor. You don’t have to love your neighbor. You don’t have to necessarily hang out with your neighbor or get along,” she said.

“If that neighbor needs a cup of sugar, you make sure they have a cup of sugar, because they’re probably going to make some really great bread and share it with some other people and make them happy. And you got to be a small part of that, because you were being neighborly.”

And it’s not just soups. Wheat Street Hotdogs, which serves vegan hotdogs, is offering a $1 hot dog special. No questions asked, it said in a Facebook post.

“We know it’s not much but if we all pitch in as a community and do what we can, we’ll get through this nonsense together,” the post read.

Mullen said she hopes that more restaurants will also begin to offer specials as the shutdown continues.

“It’s so important that we step up as a community and… until we’re able to get this figured out, how are we going to come together to make sure that those in our community are getting taken care of? And without shame or guilt about it?”

This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 1:32 PM.