Skip to main content

Bracken's Kitchen: Bringing Food to People in Need

Healthy food | Anas Maarawi / Flickr (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0))
Support Provided By

It's Tuesday morning when Bill Bracken hops on the phone while Bracken's Kitchen is in full swing. This week, the Garden Grove-based non-profit is set to provide meals to 15 different organizations that help feed people in need. Already, one van has left Orange County to bring 735 meals up to Los Angeles. Later on, a shelter in Anaheim will pick up meals, as will the homeless youth group Stand Up for Kids. Tonight, Bracken's Kitchen will take their truck, Betsey, out to Santa Ana to serve meals to the families of the kids who are part of an after-school program for homeless children. 

Bracken's Kitchen truck | Still from "Broken Bread"

Bill Bracken of Bracken's Kitchen and Roy Choi | Still from "Broken Bread"

"We've fallen into a routine in our kitchen over the last couple months," says Bracken. It's a routine, though, that requires a lot of juggling as they handle everything from individual meals for people who live in hotels and motels to trays meant to feed larger crowds. Today, they're balancing everything from barbecue chicken to cheeseburger macaroni and cheese to breakfast bakes, along with salad and fruit preparation. And the team here isn't massive. There's an executive chef, three cooks, a dishwasher and, on this particular day, an estimated eight volunteers at work. 

Bracken has been working in kitchens since he was 12 and, in the course of his career, he became an award-winning chef. He worked in luxury hotels and cooked for celebrities, but says that Bracken's Kitchen has been "life-changing and soul-changing." 

A dish from Bracken's Kitchen | Still from "Broken Bread"
Serving food from Bracken's Kitchen | Still from "Broken Bread"
Serving food from Bracken's Kitchen | Still from "Broken Bread"

The seeds of Bracken's Kitchen were sown after the economy crashed in 2008. "I watched a lot of really good people lose their jobs and struggle just to put a meal on the table," he says, "and it was then that food insecurity became real for me and, quite frankly, the face of hunger changed, at least here in Orange County."

It took another few years, though, for the idea to fully take shape. The business plan came together with time. One day, he was sitting inside Starbucks when he saw a food truck pass. "I had the idea of a food truck bringing food to those people who need it, instead of asking, expecting them to come to a soup kitchen," he recalls. 

Now, he says, the food truck is just part of what has become Bracken's Kitchen. The chef wanted to continue cooking in a way similar to what he had been doing in high-priced establishments. To an extent, Bracken's Kitchen has been able to do that. Thanks to food recovery services, they get excess, quality products from sources that include the same distributors who service restaurants. Bracken mentions that he has a rack of veal, some caviar and lobster claws in the freezer. He's thinking about using the lobster claws in a seafood chowder or pasta dish. 

"I get to be every bit as creative as I used to be, but instead of figuring out the neatest coolest way to serve this foie gras dish," he says, "I'm figuring out what I can do with lobster in the freezer." 

"Broken Bread" episode E5: Waste explores food waste and the people looking to minimize it.
Waste

Healthy food | Anas Maarawi / Flickr (Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0))​

Support Provided By
Read More
Shrimp ceviche sits over a black tostada and is topped with chopped cucumber, red peppers, fresh green herbs and seaweed.

5 Places to Eat and Drink Like a Local in Tijuana

We asked Chef José "Joe" Figueroa of el Casimiro to share some of his favorite places to eat and drink around Tijuana, a multicultural city with an ever-evolving food scene.
Plastic chairs are arranged in a room spaced apart. People sit in them and face the front where a woman is standing in front of a projector, speaking to the group. Behind the presenter is a colorful mural.

How to Support Migrant Families, Wherever You Are

Espacio Migrante director and founder, Paulina Olvera Cáñez, shares five ways we can help support immigrant communities, whether we're at home or on location.
Lilian Meija and José Aguilar stand in front of a mural. The mural features a face painted in blue with strong, dark eyebrows, full lips and determined eyes. A band goes across the face's head with the words "Honduras" over it. To the left of the blue face is a multicolored guacamaya, or macaw. To the right of the blue face is half of a woman's face with large eyes, long eyelashes, full red lips and strong cheekbones.

A Taste of Home: How Tijuana's Honduras 504 Provides Comfort for Migrant Families

Since migrating to Tijuana in 2011, Chef Lilian Mejía's restaurant Honduras 504 has become a touchstone and safe place for Tijuana's growing Honduran community — and has expanded the city's culinary offerings along the way.