After more than 50 years in operation, the soup kitchen at The Parish of Calvary-St.George’s in Stuytown is shutting down due to a disagreement over allowing patrons to dine inside or use the restrooms in the church facility.
St. George’s Common Table on East 16th Street and 3rd Avenue served hot meals to an average of 100 people every Thursday, September through June. But last Thursday, instead of handing out meals as they normally would, volunteers gathered at the home of one of their own to commemorate what is likely their final year there.
Volunteers told THE CITY that Common Table temporarily shut down its normal indoor seating operation when the pandemic began, and reopened as an outdoor pickup-only service at the tail end of 2021, when many New Yorkers had received their first COVID vaccinations.
“It made sense when Covid happened, obviously. And then it would be like, ‘Hey, are we going back?” former volunteer Amy Anthony, 47, told THE CITY on Thursday at the gathering. “A community was built, and people are friends. They’d have coffee and water, tea and they’d socialize, and then not be outside in the heat, or outside in the cold.”
Amy Anthony volunteered at the St. George’s Church Common Table for more than a decade, Sept. 11, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The parish’s COVID-era rule banning guests from eating inside the church or using its bathrooms has raised tensions over the last few years between Doug Perry, who has served as director of the program and volunteers along with about 20 other people, and Rev. Jacob Smith, who serves as rector of The Parish of Calvary-St. George’s.
Desperate to return to the pre-pandemic community that they say Common Table fostered, Perry and volunteers have pushed Smith to reopen the church to clients, allowing them to dine inside and use the bathroom. But Smith has been reluctant to do so, attributing the decision to unspecified city regulations, parish programming and plumbing issues.
After emailing about a return to indoor operations on April 23, Perry decided on July 24 that he had enough, choosing to not continue running Common Table if the operation remained limited to outdoor service.
“I do want to stress that Jacob, as the head of a church, is doing a terrific job. I really, truly admire him for what he’s done with the church,” Perry told THE CITY. “I am totally befuddled about his attitude about the Common Table. If he had just sat down and talked with us, we could have worked things out.”
In an email sent last week that was shared with THE CITY, Smith told volunteers that the church would “discern what is next for Common Table,” and send an update in October.
He attributed “numerous logistical concerns, which include not only parish programming, but city regulations, which make returning indoors impossible,” while also asking who would now lead the service and how it would get funded.
In a written statement to THE CITY, Smith cited plumbing as a major issue for “a church facility that is over 150 years old.”
“Before the pandemic, we struggled with how the Common Table clients used the restroom,” he said. “Often the clientele would use them for more than just a restroom, but for bathing and laundry, which caused our facilities to be frequently out of order. This always had an impact and ramifications for our other programs and tenants.”
He said that following Perry’s resignation as director of Common Table, the church is “now evaluating our next steps, and how we serve this particular population within our means. The spirit of service within the parish has not changed.”
While the volunteers have sought to make bathrooms available again, Perry said that “guests never asked to use the bathroom. None of them really complained about it or asked about it. They were all so nice.”
Venture capitalist, political strategist and philanthropist Bradley Tusk has donated upwards of $150,000 to the church to bankroll Common Table over the last decade, along with an additional $50,000 to renovate the kitchen.
“If there’s a plumbing problem, I’ll pay for it. If there’s a janitorial issue, I’ll pay for it,” Tusk told THE CITY in a phone interview on Friday. “It’s inhumane to not allow people to do basic things like use the bathroom or eat indoors.”
Smith expressed gratitude for Tusk’s support and said the church has evaluated different options related to their plumbing issues.
“All of the options would require us to rip up the stone floor in our historic hall, and would, while this work is underway, displace the many other ministries and organizations that use the hall such as A.A. [Alcoholics Anonymous] and St. Ann’s for the Deaf to name just a few,” he said.
Volunteers told THE CITY that Common Table attracts a variety of less privileged New Yorkers, including older adults and those who struggle with homelessness, unemployment or live on low income.
As much as they enjoy the food served, which can include Cuban black bean soup, mixed salad, pork roast, chicken, breast, casseroles, lasagna and homemade desserts, clients and volunteers appreciate the community and develop relationships.
“[Fred] keeps proposing to me,” Nancy Adelman, 79, told THE CITY, joking about marriage requests from a regular client. When asked if she had accepted his proposal, “we’re still working it out,” she said.
St. George’s Common Table served a hot lunch for more than 100 people weekly at their historic church across from Stuyvesant Square Park, Sept. 11, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
But Fred and other visitors may soon need to find the food and volunteers at another location.
While they acknowledge the likely reality that Common Table will no longer partner with the parish, Perry and volunteers maintained that they’d like to continue the relationship.
“It’s still hitting, still processing, like this is it,” Rebecca Crain, 63, told THE CITY at the gathering on Thursday. “This is our last Thursday, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s the frustrating part. We can make this work.”
Smith reiterated to THE CITY that “the parish is looking at this holistically,” and that he would contact volunteers when he had more answers about the plumbing issues, who would lead Common Table and if there are “new requirements that we need to be following according to the city to ensure The Common Table is in compliance.”
Nonetheless, former volunteers like Doug Simon, 78, who first joined the group two and a half years ago, are eager to continue serving needy guests.
“Some of them didn’t have much,” he said, tearing up. “But you can give them something.”
Related