There's a wall inside the small Pakistani restaurant Mama Khan, where meal vouchers hang for anyone who needs one, no questions asked. Abdul Raziq Khan would like that wall to stay full. Meanwhile, five dollars buys a meal for a stranger.
Khan is 30 years old, a Park-Ex kid, and constitutionally incapable of running a restaurant that only serves food in a transactional fashion. Since opening Mama Khan with his mother and brothers as a ghost kitchen in 2021— during what he cheerfully describes as "probably a suicide attempt" of a moment to start a business—he has built both a community institution and simple a place to eat.
There's the halal soup kitchen that runs Tuesday through Friday from noon to two. The weekly Friday meal run to the Old Brewery Mission, where his team distributes around 140 meals a week. The warming centre he opened on a -35°C morning in January where he handed out free chai, and inspired twelve other Montreal restaurants to follow suit.
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