Dining out for good

Dine out for a good cause at these 5 charitable San Antonio restaurants and bars

Cured was designed to give back.

Cured/Facebook

With the hectic pace of San Antonio living, it can sometimes be difficult to make time for giving back. Luckily, plenty of Alamo City restaurants are here to give you a helping hand. Whether donating profits or sending team members out to volunteer, these eateries feed your belly and soul.

The Cherrity Bar
Plenty of bars and restaurants make donating to charity a part of their model, but few are willing to make giving back their entire gig. At this East Side bar, 100 percent of the proceeds go to organizations helping neighbors in need. The Tourette Association of America gets 10 percent each month, then the remaining 90 percent is divided in a 60/30/10 percent split. To help get everyone in the spirit, the watering hole lets guests vote for their favorite cause, deciding how the funds are allocated.

Cured
For chef Steve McHugh, blood cancer awareness is personal. Before opening his lauded Pearl eatery, he survived non-Hodgkin’s Lymphonia — a triumph that is reflected in the restaurant’s name. Today, he organizes an annual gala dinner, Cured for a Cure, that has become a huge fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Bringing in chefs from across America, the initiative has raised over $100,000 for research into life-saving treatment. Help them give even more when the dinner returns September 9.

Hopdoddy Burger Bar
What’s better than eating a juicy burger piled with Tillamook cheddar, sweet caramelized onions, jalapeños, and hickory barbecue sauce? Knowing that $1 dollar of the purchase of the burger goes to helping youth lead service projects that benefit the whole San Antonio community. Since its founding, the Texas-based chain has offered the Goodnight Good Cause burger in each of its locations with a mission of making giving back easy. The location in The Rim is no different, partnering with the Spur’s Silver & Black Give Back Team Up Challenge to encourage kids to be more civically minded.

La Gloria
Chef Johnny Hernandez didn’t just become one of Alamo City’s beloved names by serving up delicious food. He has a real investment in the city he calls home. Eating at La Gloria and the rest of the restaurants in his hospitality group helps support Kitchen Campus, a nonprofit that encourages middle and high school students to explore culinary careers. That you can do so while enjoying some of the best margaritas and Interior Mexican cuisine in the state is a bonus.

Snooze
This brunch franchise may be based in Denver, but they strive to be a part of every community they serve. Each location is committed to landing a helping hand by giving one percent of their sales back to local causes through in-kind donations and services like volunteering. In San Antonio, the eatery has teamed up with land conservation organization Green Spaces Alliance, the San Antonio Food Bank, and Kinetic Kids — a group that provides sports and recreation programming to children with all abilities.

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SPARE ART

North San Antonio gets crafty with new creative supplies shop

Photo by Ismael Rodriguez.

Local nonprofit Spare Parts recently opened its brick-and-mortar center for creative reuse.

One local nonprofit organization has spent years getting environmental accountability and community education down to a fine art. And now it’s getting crafty with a new brick-and-mortar shop in North San Antonio aimed to help locals to go green.

Spare Parts was founded in 2010 by executive director and longtime arts educator Mary Elizabeth Cantú to provide a creative spark for area students and schools lacking arts funding and resources. Through a variety of educational programs, public art exhibitions, events, and the organization’s traveling Mini Art Museum, Spare Parts has enlightened thousands of students and San Antonians, all while fostering reuse practices and sustainability, a key tenet of the nonprofit.

Spare Parts’ latest endeavor is another artistic triumph. Its new center for creative reuse, located at 13451 Wetmore Rd., is nothing less than a crafter’s delight. The shop features an impressive array of “pre-loved” and price-reduced artsy merchandise — from paint supplies and paper crafts to sewing items, beading and jewelry, school and office supplies, vintage gadgets, and crafting kits — all of which has been rescued from area landfills.

Cantú notes that proceeds from the new Spare Parts’ shop will enable the organization to further increase creative and educational experiences for San Antonio students and families. But even more so, she hopes the shop will help locals embrace the concept that one person’s trash can be another’s artistic treasure.

“There really isn’t any more room in the world for this stuff. Buying pre-loved at places like Spare Parts or other stores is a way to reduce the amount of things [people] feel that they need,” Cantú said in a recent interview with the San Antonio Sentinel. “We’re challenging people to rethink things around them, buy pre-loved, and find a way to be creative in their lives.”

In the time of COVID-19, however, getting the creative juices flowing isn’t as simple as popping into the Spare Parts shop. Though the center for creative reuse is open, the store is currently offering only weekend curbside pickup of items ordered through its website. But crafters shouldn’t despair, as Spare Parts is offering private in-person shopping experiences in the new year, with the first planned for January 16 and 17.

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