NEST Café marks 4 years serving the Quad Cities pay-what-you-can meals

NEST Café in Rock Island usually sells about 75 meals a day. On Thursday, the restaurant sold more than 100 before noon, an hour after opening.

Thursday was the fourth anniversary of the cafe, the Quad-Cities' only pay-what-you-can restaurant. Staff, volunteers and customers filled the space, with a line reaching nearly out the door. They served Huli Huli drumsticks and tofu, veggie skewers, rice, fruit crumble and pineapple upside down cake.

NEST (Nourish Everyone Sustainably Together) Café opened in mid-April 2022. The restaurant lets customers pay any price for their meal, without judgement.

On Thursday, the cafe celebrated the anniversary with a one-time t-shirt design station. Customers brought or bought plain shirts to have a hand-drawn design of the restaurant's exterior printed on their shirt.

Laura Evans Mahn, founder and executive director of NEST Café, said more people have relied on the restaurant's flexible pay structure since 2022. Currently, about three-fourths of customers pay $5 or less. The cafe recommends $12 for a full plate as a starting point to move up or down from.

"The clientele has shifted, which reflects the need in the community," Mahn said.

But as the need for inexpensive meals has grown, so has the public's desire to support the cafe, Mahn said. Sometimes, people struggle to find an open volunteer slot because they fill so rapidly.

Quad-Cities organizations also regularly award NEST Café grants to support the restaurant. Most recently in January, the Hubbell-Waterman Foundation awarded the cafe $5,000 for ongoing operational expenses.

"The community support has been tremendous," Mahn said.

Mahn said sometimes people misperceive NEST Café as a soup kitchen rather than a true restaurant. But the cafe offers meals for patrons of all socioeconomic backgrounds and simply relies on an unconventional pay structure, Mahn said. The venue offers indoor and outdoor sit-down seating, and to-go options. The restaurant also prizes high-quality ingredients. People facing economic hardship can rarely afford or access nutrient-dense foods, and Mahn said everyone should have access to healthy, minimally-processed meals.

"This is a restaurant for everyone," she said.

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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 1:46 PM.