UNION — Every day can feel like Christmas at Meemaws Hometown Kitchen.

At least, that’s what Elise and her husband Derek “Big Red” Stevens strive to provide at their pay-what-you-can restaurant in Union. When the couple first opened Meemaws in June 2024 there were prices on the menu. But that changed.

“After watching half of our community not be able to partake in what we were trying to give them because of financial reasons, I really started to pray about it and God really showed me that I was to take all the prices off my menu,” Stevens said.

She said now at Meemaws Hometown Kitchen the children of Union eat for free. They get two free drinks and between one to two meals a day

“Those that I know really need it, I feed them all three meals,” Stevens said.

And the restaurant asks adults to pay what they can afford. When it comes time to settle the bill, customers have the freedom to choose what feels right for them. Payment can come in any form, Stevens said, whether that be dollars for their wallet, vegetables for their gardens or eggs from their backyard.

Meemaws is closed through the end of January due to life circumstances. When the restaurant reopens Feb. 1, Arielle Star will be joining the team as the chef.

Elise and Derek Stevens have a lot of plans for how Meemaws Hometown Kitchen can grow. They’d like to buy the building to help people in need of housing and also would like to include an arcade room that can be rented out on the same pay-what-you-can system.

“So single moms or single dads that need to rent a place for their children to have a party can just come and do it,” she said.

The couple also hopes to open a second location in LaCrosse, Washington, in the near future.

Where’s the dough?

Keeping the lights on at Meemaws means the Stevenses rely on social media.

“We are funded by our social media and blessings from others,” Elise Stevens said.

Before opening the restaurant, she was a social media influencer. However, she stepped away from the platform following the death of her grandmother.

“My grandma had told me that if I was doing it for the wrong reasons, God would humble me. A few weeks later I was hacked and lost everything,” she said.

During this break, Stevens started a journey that would eventually lead to the opening Meemaws. When she prayed seeking guidance on what she should do about the prices, she said God showed her she was meant to go back to social media and use her income to feed her community.

Her husband said since restarting on social media they’ve had remarkable growth.

“When she was hacked, she only had about a 100,000 followers, and in the six months that we’ve decided to start we’re now over half a million followers,” he said.

How it all started

Her children were the original catalyst to begin cooking. Stevens said two of her children were diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, which affected their brains. She found the food they consumed daily was an important factor.

“So, I went on this health journey and at the same time I was also going on a religious journey,” she said.

It all started with sourdough.

Then came the soups and breads, which she dropped off on people’s doorsteps and sold on Facebook. Next, Stevens started making dinner for her Bible study group.

Three weeks later she told her husband she wanted to open a restaurant. He said it wasn’t feasible — they only had $20 in their bank account.

“I said, ‘Well, God told me to start a restaurant, so it’s going to happen.’ The next week, we had a very nice woman from the community that heard I wanted to start a Jesus cafe, so she wrote a $5,000 check and told me to do it,” Stevens said.

From December 2023 to April 2024 Stevens went from never stepping foot in the kitchen to getting ready to cook up meals at Meemaws.

“I rarely went into the kitchen and part of my healing journey was the Lord sent me on this mission to take back the kitchen,” Stevens said.

Trauma kept her from the kitchen

Stevens said she was stabbed in the abdomen when she was four and a half months pregnant while cooking. Her abuser held her hostage, and when she  escaped, life turned into a game of “cat and mouse.”

A friend told Stevens she needed to hire someone to keep her safe, but as a single mother with no money, she didn’t know where to turn. Enter her husband for the last 16 years.

The pair were friends when Stevens said she jokingly offered him $100 to be her bodyguard. He said OK and the rest is history. A few months later they were married.

Stevens said people often ask her how she makes enough money through social media to run Meemaws.

“I went through hell and I’ve seen the other side and I know that this is what God had intended for all of that. So, now I use my story and my trauma to feed my community,” she said. “I get to show my daughter, we went through this, but now look, we’re turning this around and not only are we helping people in our community, but we’re giving an outlet to people to be able to come if they need help.”

Building a place of love

Love is at the heart of what Elise and Derek Stevens are doing at Meemaws Hometown Kitchen. Their biggest goal is to build unity and connection within their community. They treat everyone like family.

“We often say we just want to show the love of Jesus Christ to the world and that’s what it is for me. Unconditional love. I don’t care who you are or where you are in life, come to Meemaws and I will love you,” Stevens said.

They hosted a free community dinner on Thanksgiving where they fed around 40 people in-house and sent everyone with an extra plate. They also fed two people working at gas stations, 18 truck drivers and took 20 meals to the local warming station. Next year they hope to double the number of people fed.

The husband and wife duo are Christian, but they do not force their region on anybody. They want the restaurant to be a place where everyone feels they belong.

“Memaws is to me what I always imagined a church would be,” she said. “It’s an open door policy. It’s everybody’s welcome, it’s everybody is loved, everybody’s fed, everybody’s nurtured and it’s everybody scratches each other’s back.”

To learn more about Meemaws Hometown Kitchen check out Elise and Derek Stevens’ website www.meemaws.com.

All social media links and information on how to donate can be found at www.linktr.ee/Meemaws.