West Seattle commissary kitchen distributes free meals to those in need

As Mister Rogers’ said best, during the emergencies you want to look for the helpers. Keith Mathewson, owner of KBM Seattle, a large commissary production kitchen in West Seattle, is one of those helpers.

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He and the tenants of his community kitchen started a project to give back to their community during the coronavirus outbreak. In their first week, they gave out 100 four-person meals, and they hope to keep giving out more and more until the stay-at-home order is lifted.

“A week or two ago, I was watching the evening news and I saw the number of cars in line to get to a food bank in California,” Mathewson told KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show. “And it occurred to me that there must be a need here in the Seattle area, we’re just not seeing it. So we decided as a community kitchen to make meals and see if we could distribute them.”

There is no restriction as to who can pick up these meals.

“Anybody who’s being impacted is welcome to come by,” he said. “We’re asking people to stay in their cars. We have people who are directing traffic and will hand the food to the window as they pull up in front of the commissary on Findley.”

The address of KBM Seattle is 5600 Delridge Way Southwest, in West Seattle.

Mathewson said the demand was higher than they had expected in the first week. The team prepared 100 meals and ran out. He expects demand to be even higher in the following weeks.

“We’re going to try and provide [meals] as long as we can fund it,” he said.

Volunteers from the commissary kitchen are pitching in to make and distribute the meals, many of whom are food truck owners, caterers, and vendors at farmers markets unable to operate their businesses at this time.

“It’s the whole community, so all of these small businesses that are in the facility, there’s El Chito Tamales, Jemil’s Big Easy catering, Ka Pow Thai food,” he said. “There’s just a dozen or more small companies that although they’re severely impacted, they’re helping out. They’ve got a great deal of free time, and we have a large production kitchen that’s pretty much idle at the moment, so it seemed like a good fit.”

Some of the businesses at KBM Seattle have applied for loans to help survive the pandemic, Mathewson said, but only one person that he knows of has received any kind of relief. That relief came from Amazon as the food truck would usually be in South Lake Union.

“Many of my tenants are either without income on the verge of having gone out of business, a number have decided to go out of business, so there’s been an impact,” he said.

To donate to this group so they can keep delivering meals to families in need during the stay-at-home order, visit their GoFundMe page at Seattle Covid Relief, KBM.

If you, your family, or someone you know could use a meal, Mathewson asks that you put in your request on the GoFundMe page so they have an idea of how many people will show up.

“That being said, nobody’s turned away,” he said. “We’re hoping that we can produce 600 meals this coming week, but it depends on how much funding we have.”

Listen to the Gee and Ursula Show weekday mornings from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.