Hundreds of people in Leeds picked up meals entirely free of charge in an inspiring display of generosity at a celebrated Indian restaurant.
Minal and Bobby Patel, of award-winning Drighlington venue Prashad, said that they wanted to give something back to the community as many face financial pressures over the festive season.
Minal and Bobby Patel, of award-winning Drighlington venue Prashad, said that they wanted to give something back to the community as many face financial pressures over the festive season.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So, the idea for this initiative, Community Curry, came about, Minnell and I were sat
00:06down after service and just getting into the Christmas spirit.
00:11We were inspired a little bit by a local business in the community who was also giving away
00:15free Christmas dinners to anyone who was struggling.
00:19And you know, it just made me think, this year in particular, we're feeling that people
00:26are feeling it.
00:27We kind of talked about it, shall we do this, and it was a small conversation with Minnell,
00:32yeah, let's give away some curry.
00:34How will that work?
00:35I don't know.
00:36Well, we could do curry and rice.
00:38Last week leading into Christmas, people are crazy busy.
00:41Wouldn't it be nice not to have to cook for one night and not to have to pay as well?
00:46Just a little bonus.
00:47So, we put that, we put the post out and then the comments started coming and coming and
00:54coming.
00:56And you know, we're now, we're expecting 300 portions tonight.
01:00No idea how we're going to manage that.
01:02Fortunately, being British, we're good at queuing.
01:11So, tonight we're doing some curry and rice for our customers to say thank you.
01:17And whoever's struggling with this time, they can come and eat my food for free.
01:22They can donate if they want, no pressure at all, but we are happy to cook and serve
01:28the people.
01:29So, we're making today chickpeas and potato curry with some plain rice.
01:33So, here I have some rice cooking, some chickpeas and potato cooking, and we are very, very
01:39excited to serve the people.
01:45It's not what you get back from the giving, but there's just a sense, we just get a sense
01:50of joy.
01:51Tonight is about happiness.
01:54It's about sharing some joy, not making it about the money and just having a positive
02:00impact.
02:01We hope that it starts something in other businesses who are able to sort of do the
02:07same and we can kind of counteract some of that squeeze feeling by doing a little bit
02:12of giving.