AN old saying tells us that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but a restaurant in Luohu District has been offering free lunch for over two years only requiring that no food be left behind, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

At the bottom floor of a four-story house in the Heweicun housing estate of Luohu District is a special restaurant that offers free vegetarian lunches for people. Anyone can have lunch there without paying any money, and the only requirement for diners is not to waste and eat all of the food they order.

Every day between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., a free vegetarian lunch is available. Unlike normal restaurants, there are no paid waiters or waitresses serving at the restaurant. All of the people working there are volunteers and the diners themselves take their plates to the table to order food and return the plates after dining. The restaurant is unusually quiet and orderly.

The initiator of the restaurant is a man known as “Mr. Liu” who attributes its success to the efforts of all the volunteers who help operate the restaurant.

Two years ago, in 2014, Liu and his friends wanted to do something good for society and decided to offer a place where people could have a free lunch. Some of them sponsored the purchase of utensils, some volunteered to work at the restaurant cooking food and some even offered their house as the venue. On Dec. 30, 2014, the charity restaurant was officially opened to the public.

“I just did a little to contribute and the volunteers here operating the restaurant every day are the ones to be acknowledged,” said Liu. Thanks to the people who like to volunteer their help, the sponsor said that over the past two years the restaurant had never stopped its operation, even during festivals and holidays.

According to Liu, the restaurant especially welcomes people who can’t cook or are having difficulties with their lives such as homeless people, sanitation workers, and lonely elderly people.

Some students from a nearby primary school are also frequent visitors to the restaurant, said Liu, because their homes are too far for them to have lunch during the noon break and the food at the school is expensive. A volunteer said that the students are very polite and always eat up all the food without wasting any.

A volunteer, surname Kang, is an owner of a shop selling hardware near the housing estate. She said that what attracted her to help out at the restaurant is that she heard that it had been operating for over two years with only the assistance of volunteers.

Liu said that the restaurant has become popular among nearby residents and an average of over 200 people come for lunch each day. The cost of the food is not small. Apart from some people’s donations toward the maintenance of the restaurant, the diners themselves would sometimes donate food and oil to the restaurant.

“The rice we offer here is provided by myself and the other initiators,” said Liu, who thinks that a sustainable way will allow the restaurant to keep providing free lunch to residents for the long term. (Zhang Qian)