Jon Bon Jovi opens ‘pay what you can’ restaurant

The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen in New Jersey hopes to provide those living on a prayer with a cheap alternative to fast food

Going down in a blaze of Jon Dory … Jon Bon Jovi at his Soul Kitchen in New Jersey. Photograph: John W Ferguson/Getty Images

Jon Bon Jovi is opening a new “pay-what-you-can” restaurant, hoping to give low-income families an alternative to unhealthy fast food.

The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen opened on Wednesday in Red Bank, New Jersey, near the singer’s hometown of Sayreville. After two years of serving meals in various locations, the “community kitchen” has set up a permanent location in a 1,100 sq ft former garage. While customers are welcome to pay for their meals, those who are, er, living on a prayer may instead work as volunteers. “Picture the coolest brasserie in your hometown, that’s what this is,” Bon Jovi told New York magazine. “It’s the hottest-looking restaurant in this town.”

Indeed, this is hardly a soup kitchen. The bistro’s opening menu includes rainbow beet salad, pork chops with fig and apple chutney, and homemade carrot cake with lemon cream cheese frosting. Everything is “organic, healthy, good-for-you food”, Bon Jovi said, but don’t expect to find him behind the stove. “I’m an expert at washing dishes, but I can cook less than zero.”

“At a time when one in five households are living at or below the poverty level, and at a time when one out of six Americans is food insecure, this is a restaurant whose time has come,” Bon Jovi said. “This is a place based on and built on community – by and for the community.”