• The city of Lyon has just launched a new structure called the "food hub".

  • It brings together three spaces: a solidarity restaurant where more than 200 meals are served free of charge to the homeless every day, a solidarity grocery store and a kitchen.

  • Meals are made using unsold items offered by surrounding businesses.

Ribbed jacket screwed to the shoulders, the man finishes his meal, wiping the copious plate served to him with bread.

The place, in which he came to be satisfied, is open to people without fire or place.

You can enter without knocking, without showing a white paw.

You could call it the Auberge du Bon Dieu, as Brassens sang.

But in Lyon, we called it “La table des gones”.

This social restaurant, open since April rue Verlet Hanus (3rd arrondissement) in the premises of the former “Dolet”, serves between 200 and 250 meals to the homeless every noon.

It is an integral part of the new “Food Pole”, launched by the city of Lyon, the concept of which is to offer “healthy food for the most vulnerable”.

A restaurant, a grocery store and a kitchen

“The food center is made up of three structures,” summarizes Hélène Resch, the site manager. The social restaurant is reserved for homeless people who can come and eat for free after having been referred by the centers of the metropolis and solidarity or day centers ”. A stone's throw from "the table of gones", there are two other areas: the social and solidarity grocery store to help precarious students or families with accommodation and the "kitchen of the gones" where other hot meals are prepared. which are not intended to be consumed on the spot.

“They are put in jars.

Tricycles and bicycles then come to collect them to distribute them in the squats, CHRS or social hotels of the city ”, specifies Hélène Resch.

Behind the stoves of the “kitchen of the gones”, Maya 28 years old is busy preparing fruit tarts with almond custard.

The dough will be made with bread crumbs because here the watchword is to hunt down waste.

Cooked meals made from unsold items

The young woman, who has just passed her CAP in cooking, has been volunteering for four months within the Graille association.

“We collect everything and use the unsold items from organic, local stores or from private suppliers.

The most perishable vegetables are immediately used to make the hot dishes… But in the end, it's good, ”she laughs.

The rest is offered for sale or donation in the grocery store, which was until now located in the 5th.

Eventually, a friendly space will also be set up to allow people staying at the hotel or living in squats to come and prepare their meals themselves, twice a week.

Or eat there.

History of promoting social diversity.

“Access to food is essential, but building oneself, regaining self-esteem when it has been damaged, is essential.

This is what we are trying to do with this food hub (whose budget is two million euros), ”concludes Grégory Doucet, the mayor of Lyon.

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  • Lyon

  • Live the city better

  • Precarious

  • Homeless

  • Food

  • Society

  • Solidarity