Denver ? In the six months since Libby and Brad Birky opened a small cafe on a grungy strip of Colfax Avenue, they have no idea how much money they’ve made. Or how much their customers have paid for a bowl of chicken chili or a slice of organic pesto pizza.

Prices, profits – those don’t mean much in the SAME Cafe. The acronym stands for “So All May Eat,” and that philosophy is all that matters.

After years of volunteering in soup kitchens, Libby and Brad wanted to create a place that would nourish the hungry without setting them apart. No assembly-line service, no meals mass-produced from whatever happened to be donated that week. Just fresh, sophisticated food, made from scratch, served up in a real restaurant – but a restaurant without a cash register.

Pay what you think is fair, the Birkys tell their customers. Pay what you can afford.

Those who have a bit more are encouraged to drop a little extra in the donations box up front. Those who can’t pay are asked to work in the kitchen, dicing onions, scrubbing pots, giving back any way they can.

The Birkys could probably feed more hungry people, with far less effort, by donating the cash they spend on groceries to a homeless shelter.

That’s not the point.

“It’s not just the food,” Libby says. “Often, homeless people, people in need, don’t receive the same attention and care. Here, someone recognizes them, looks them in the eye, talks to them like they’re just as valuable as the next person in line. That’s why we do this.”

Brad has turned away several panhandlers. He’s not rolling pizza dough for four hours a day to give handouts. He and Libby aim to build a community in the SAME Cafe, one that draws in bankers and students and women living on the streets. They want their small space to fill with conversation – and with fellowship.

Regulars

On this warm spring afternoon, James Duncan, 44, pedals up to the cafe and locks his bike to a rack. His T-shirt is ringed with sweat; his hair is matted.

Another regular comes in, an older woman named Dee.

“What about that hat?” Dee squeals, laughing at Libby’s chef’s cap.

Until Dee discovered the cafe, she lived on instant noodles and cold cereal, with a fast-food burger now and then. Now, she lunches in the cafe at least four times a week. When she can, Dee pays $3 or $4. When she can’t, she mops the floor.

James, a part-time math teacher, is out of cash today. He carries his empty bowl to the kitchen, pulls on rubber gloves and starts washing.

In the back of the restaurant, Will Murray, 52, is wondering how much to drop in the donations box after a meal of soup, salad and pizza. Ten dollars, he decides. On the wall behind him are framed quotations about giving: “A person’s true wealth is the good he or she does in the world.” And: “Be the change you want to see …”

“Maybe I’ll toss in a few more,” he says.

‘Alternative business model’

Brad, 31, and Libby, 30, came up with the cafe idea as a way to help the hungry while letting Brad indulge his passion for cooking.

Friends told them they were crazy. But the Birkys began scouring online auctions for secondhand restaurant gear.

They paid off their car – they figured if they went broke, they’d at least have something to their name. They drew up a financial plan. Prospective landlords took one look and turned them away.

“It was a very alternative business model,” Brad says. “It took some convincing.”

To make their case, the Birkys pointed to the success of the One World Cafe in Salt Lake City, which has been serving up organic food on the pay-what-you-can philosophy since 2003. Its founder, Denise Cerreta, helped the Birkys map a start-up strategy, including applying for nonprofit status and setting up a board of directors.

In October, the Birkys opened the SAME Cafe. It is tiny, just seven tables and a narrow kitchen. Behind a tangle of plants in the bay window, the room’s sunny yellow has a cozy feel. The Birkys hung origami cranes in the kitchen and decorated every table with a bud vase of orange silk daisies.

Brad hopes to pay himself to run the cafe. For now, the Birkys live off Libby’s salary as a teacher and Brad’s part-time work as a computer consultant. Because they’re the only employees, they keep the cafe open just five days a week: Tuesday through Thursday for lunch, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Brad changes the menu daily, using seasonal ingredients to create two soups, two salads and two varieties of gourmet pizza.

Libby’s in charge of desserts: her grandma’s sugar cookies, fruit tarts, brownies, cheesecake or banana-sour cream pie, served with a dollop of peanut butter.

To curtail waste, the Birkys don’t set portions for their food. Customers take plates from a stack and tell Brad how to fill them: a taste of the couscous with olives and feta cheese, a full bowl of creamy squash soup, a wedge of pear-and-gorgonzola pizza. They are always welcome back for seconds.

‘This is our church’

But it’s not the food alone that draws customers.

“You feel like you’re helping them help others,” says Bob Goodrich, 64, who eats at the cafe with his wife, Iris, several times a week. They give $15 or $20 when they can, $5 when that’s all they have.

While her husband gabs, Iris polishes off two slices of pizza and a green salad studded with dried cherries and pecans.

“I cleaned my plate,” she calls. “Can I get a cookie?”

Libby comes over with a tray of sweets. Bob turns to Brad.

“Hand me your cloth,” he says. “I’ll wipe down the tables.”

Bob, a retired maintenance worker, lugs a bucket of soapy water to an empty table and gets to work.

By 1 p.m., the lunchtime crowd is gone. Libby dumps flour in a bowl for another batch of cookies.

In a few weeks, the cafe’s board of directors – including a chef from a Denver culinary school and a nun from the Catholic Worker shelter – will meet to review the books from the first quarter. All Brad knows, all that counts, is that the donations have been covering the rent and groceries.

Both Birkys grew up religious; Libby was raised Catholic and Brad, Mennonite. They don’t belong to any organized religion now – except, maybe, the cafe.

“If we didn’t have faith in the goodness of humankind, we wouldn’t be doing this,” Brad says as he pulls out a rolling pin and begins another pizza crust. “This is our church.”