Its future uncertain, La Comida scrambles to find new space downtown

La Comida clients sit down for lunch at Stevenson House in Palo Alto on April 19, 2023. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Jan Holliday discovered La Comida more than two decades ago, when her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren moved into her Crescent Park home.

She didn't have full access to her kitchen at that time, and so she began to attend lunches that the nonprofit was providing at a Bryant Street building occupied by the nonprofit Avenidas. The program, she said, was a "lifesaver." She was able to obtain nutritious meals while meeting people in the community.

But after close to four decades in Avenidas, the dining program came to an acrimonious halt in 2017, when Avenidas began to rehabilitate the building and the newly reconfigured dining area was deemed by La Comida to be too small for its needs. In August of that year, La Comida left Avenidas.

The food fight between Palo Alto's two preeminent senior-serving nonprofits had by then turned bitter. La Comida users argued that Avenidas' proposed dining space, which would accommodate around 90 people rather than the pre-rehabilitation 120, amounted to an eviction for the dining program. The debate over space turned into a legal scuffle in 2016, when La Comida filed an appeal against Avenidas' rehabilitation plan. (The two sides ultimately reached a settlement that, among other conditions, committed Avenidas to help pay for a new location for La Comida.)

These days, Holliday and many other residents in north Palo Alto are settling for the next best scenario: picking up takeout meals that are prepared, packaged and distributed to dozens of seniors on weekdays at the First United Methodist Church on Hamilton Avenue. In south Palo Alto, La Comida continues to run a congregate dining program at the Stevenson House apartment complex, where it prepares all of its meals and serves about 150 visitors at about 70 tables on a typical afternoon, according to Bill Blodgett, co-president of the La Comida board.

The downtown takeout program is also a hit. On a typical lunch hour, it attracts about 140 seniors, according to Blodgett. Most are low income; a few are homeless. Many are residents of Lytton Gardens or other downtown senior residential facilities. By 11:45 a.m. on a recent Monday, about two dozen individuals had lined up to get lunches just as the program opened for the day.

Jan Holiday, a longtime participant in La Comida's lunch program and a member of the nonprofit's board of directors, stands outside the take-out location at the First United Methodist Church on April 17, 2023. Photo by Gennady Sheyner.

Holliday arrived a bit after noon to pick up La Comida's daily offering: pollo asado, pinto beans, green pepper strips, zucchini and fresh fruit. She exchanged pleasantries with passersby. A woman cheerfully greeted her. "Nice to see you," she replied, smiling back. The community interactions are still there in the takeout program, she said, but they're fleeting.

"The social connections that I made while having lunch at Avenidas are invaluable in my life," Holliday, 81, said. "From the bottom of my heart, they are invaluable. Losing that has been a great loss in my feeling of well-being."

The downtown program is now in jeopardy. Starting in July, La Comida will be required to return to congregate dining to remain eligible for the various state and federal grants that pay for its operations. The pandemic-era exemption that allowed the nonprofit to switch to takeout is about to go away thanks to the recent expiration of California's state of emergency.

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