At Everybody Eats Cafe in Chester, Everybody’s Welcome

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity was an urgent issue across many communities in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Chef Stephanie Willis and a group of restaurant-industry friends responded to this crisis by forming Everybody Eats Foundation, a pop-up food giveaway program that ended up giving away thousands of hot meals, bags of food, and personal supplies in neighborhoods across Philadelphia.

 

“We really wanted to provide assistance for people who needed it, specifically in neighborhoods where we’re from, and it snowballed into something bigger than we expected,” Willis says.

Everybody Eats Cafe founders Stephanie Willis and Malik Ali (left) with Stefan Roots, the Mayor of Chester (right).

 

Five years later, Willis owns and operates Everybody Eats Cafe on West 5th Street in downtown Chester, a multifaceted business which continues her community-centric work started in 2020. Throughout the week, this casual spot serves up egg sandwiches, cornbread French toast and chicken and waffles for brunch, and burgers, cheesesteaks and hoagies for lunch. They also run a bustling catering business that serves the film and television industry; and they run private event space connected to the cafe’s storefront. 

 

Perhaps the most unique component of Everybody Eats is that every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Chef Willis and her small crew prepare hot meals that are distributed to neighbors via Chester Eastside, an advocacy group fighting food insecurity in Chester. These distributions feed upwards of 200 people at a time. On every third and fourth Thursday, they prepare free evening meals served from the cafe to anyone in need, and on Mondays, the cafe runs a food distribution with Sharing Excess, a food rescue and distribution organization. Around the holidays, they push to provide even more; for instance, last week, Everybody East partnered with Chester City Hall and Philadelphia Eagles Nakobe Dean to prepare and give away 500 free Thanksgiving kits.

 

All of this extra food is prepared during the cafe’s regular (and busy) schedule.

 

“A lot of times, if we pick up small catering gigs, we’re here at 4:30 a.m. prepping, and staying through ‘til the end of the day—I don’t even know how we do it, but we make it happen,” says Willis. “But we feel the love. Guests who come to the community feedings come back to tell us how good the food is.”

 

Willis, who grew up in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey found her way into the restaurant industry when she was a teenager, waiting tables at her local Friendly’s. After college, she moved to Philadelphia, where she worked in all kinds of restaurants, “from fine dining to dive bars,” learning the ins and outs of the front of the house.  

 

After having her son, and realizing the 14-hour days of restaurant work were no longer sustainable, she began posting photos of her home-cooked meals on social media, and started fielding catering requests.

 

“People were asking me to cook for 20 people, then 150 people…I had a tiny kitchen, and I was busting out meals for a million people, it felt like,” she remembers. 

 

That led to her work as a private chef for professional athletes around the city. In 2018, Willis was a contestant on Fox’s cooking show “Master Chef,” which further raised her profile. The following year, she got connected with a group of rising Black chefs, who began collaborating on Cooking for the Culture, a pop-up dinner series at South Restaurant. It’s this group that became the driving force behind Everybody Eats in 2020. It was looking for a permanent kitchen space to continue their community work that brought Willis and her partner and fellow chef Malik Ali to their current space in Chester.

 

As they expanded Everybody Eats into a for-profit, brick-and-mortar cafe in 2023, it wasn’t always easy. Bills and expenses mounted as they worked to get the business going, and at one point, Willis considered closing up shop. At a pivotal moment, two location scouts working with a film production company stopped in, asking about renting the cafe as a holding space for actors and equipment during a shoot in Chester. 

 

“I started giving them my spiel about Everybody Eats Foundation, that we’re all Black chefs, and they told me the film’s director was looking for a chef of color to cater,” she said. “It was like it was fated.” 

 

Willis secured that catering job, and word-of-mouth traveled quickly within the filmmaking community. Everybody Eats has catered numerous commercials, films, and television productions, including the recent HBO show “Task,” which was shot in and around Delco. They’ve taken on some even bigger gigs, like the Roots Picnic.

 

“Every year we’re unlocking different things we can do within our capacity—we just keep going,” Willis says.

 

Chester is a tight-knit community, and as a non-native, Willis says it took a little while for Everybody Eats to establish itself.

 

“In every neighborhood, when you’re the new kid, people have to feel you out, see who you are and what you do,” she said. “By now, we’ve gained the trust, we’re busy for lunch and breakfast, local people have been booking our event space, and people come to our brunches and our karaoke nights.”

 

Ultimately, it all comes back to feeding the community, which Willis is as committed to as ever. As she looks to the future, she envisions bringing the Everybody Eats model to other cities, like Wilmington, Delaware and Atlanta, Georgia. But for the time being, her focus is still local. 

 

“For Delco, Philly and Wilmington residents—anyone who needs help and comes here—whatever you need, we got it and you can have it.”

 

Find Everybody Eats Cafe at 16 W. 5th St. in Chester, PA; (610) 822-0000.

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Want to know more about everything Delco? We’re more than just your source for good eats — we’re your source for where to stay, what to do and more in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. We’re Visit Delco, PA. They say we’re A LOT…and they’re right! Contact us at (610) 565-3679, by email or online.

– Emily Kovach

 

Featured photo: Everybody Eats Cafe founders Stephanie Willis and Malik Ali (left) with Stefan Roots, the Mayor of Chester (right).