New ‘pay-what-you-can’ café to open in Roanoke

You can pay what you can for a meal at Ursula’s Café

Ursula's Café is set to open in January 2022. It's a pay what you can café. (WSLS)

ROANOKE, Va. – At the corner of Jefferson and Franklin sits a new kind of café in the Star City: Ursula’s.

It’s a cozy space with vintage chairs, tables and decorations.

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The café will serve more than just paying customers. During the pandemic, co-president Ami Trowell and her husband decided to open the ‘pay what you can’ café.

“People in our community are out of jobs or you know, not finding good jobs and we see there’s homelessness rising and so forth,” said Trowell. “So we’re like, ‘We’ve got to do something.’”

Trowell tossed around the idea of a soup kitchen, with a twist. The two settled on the ‘pay-what-you-can’ model.

“We provide a suggested price for everything that’s on the menu. And folks can come in and pay all of that, some of that, none of that, more than that. Because if you pay more, you cover someone else,” said Trowell. “The model really relies on about 80 percent of the customers paying, and then the other 20 percent we just know it’s going to be, they’re not going to be paying.”

On the menu: homemade soup, an elevated PB&J, baked goods, and coffee and tea.

“I just don’t know how I can have everything I need and know that people in my community aren’t even able to feed themselves,” said Trowell.

It will also be a community arts venue.

“Part of our mission is that we’re feeding souls, as well as bodies,” said Trowell.

She said there were times when they almost gave up.

“Every time I think of that I think about how hard it is to be food insecure and how hard it is to be without a house and that this is not that hard and that we have to push through,” said Trowell.

She hopes the new year will bring a new sense of hope at Ursula’s Café.

“We get to support people in our community,” said Trowell. “We get to be what I think a community really is.”

The plan is to open the café at the end of January.

However, they still need to enlist volunteers to help run the nonprofit.

Trowell said they also need to raise about $20,000 add a new fridge and a second bathroom. A GoFundMe has been created to raise money for Ursula’s Cafe.


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You can watch Lindsey during Virginia Today every weekend or as a reporter during the week!