Public diners are a place to grab a meal after a 10-hour shift. A place to eat when you’ve run out of ideas for what to cook tonight. A place to go for a meal between classes. They’re guilt-free. The price doesn’t make you think twice.
They’re not somewhere you go out to as a treat. But they’re not charity either. They’re everyday eating places. State-supported, alongside buses, libraries, parks and museums, they are part of public infrastructure.
Public diners are a way for the state to discharge its responsibility to make good food available to everyone. They are a way of making it easy for people to eat the food that keeps them nourished. They are a way for strengthening our social fabric and connection to place. They are an investment in an intervention that can help deliver the social, environmental and health outcomes we seek.
Public diners are capturing imagination domestically and internationally. The best time to roll them out was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. Public diners are an idea whose time has come.
Read our latest report.