Pop-up restaurant for a good cause

Over the past few weeks, Lijm & Cultuur hosted the Happietaria pop-up restaurant. The restaurant raised money for Tearfund, a development organisation. Happietaria is run entirely by students: they do the preparations and take shifts in the kitchen, dining room and dishwashing area. For four weeks, four days a week, meals were cooked, served and cleared away for charity.

Preparations had started months earlier. The organising committee had to find a location, recruit sponsors and put together a menu. The first sign of this work for those outside the organisation was the drinks auction. Through the website, people could bid on the right to name a drink on the menu. The result was a collection of references to friends groups, student jokes and obscure inside humour. Ginger beer became Knolvocht, Fanta appeared as Fantastich Lekker, and Radler as Aan het Verlaat’ler. By the time the restaurant opened its doors, a full menu was ready and the first shifts had been filled with volunteers.

For visitors, the experience felt much like any other restaurant – if slightly less polished. Tables were set, a menu offered dishes such as lasagne, curry and cauliflower steak, and at the end of the evening guests paid their bill.

Few restaurants employ as many students, and even fewer run entirely on volunteers

Behind the scenes, however, the operation looked rather different. Few restaurants employ as many students, and even fewer run entirely on volunteers. The volunteers’ group chat alone included around 120 people. Anyone who helped out for three or more shifts received a keychain. And perhaps inevitably for a Delft student project, a certain degree of improvisation added to the atmosphere rather than detracting from it.

When I arrived late in the afternoon for a shift in the dining room, the kitchen was already busy. The preparation team was finishing up as the first cooking shift came in. I recognised many of the volunteers at least by sight, though there were also plenty of unfamiliar faces. Someone told me she was there to complete a mandatory volunteering requirement for school. Others had joined because friends had joined, or because they had been involved in a previous event.

I had never worked in service before. My housemate, who has years of experience in hospitality, had given one piece of advice beforehand: the main thing is to get over hesitating to interrupt people’s conversations. In practice, I found balancing a tray of drinks more challenging. It was a concrete floor, and sadly I was not the only volunteer to drop a glass during a shift. The second time I helped it went better, but it would probably take a few more evenings to really get the hang of it.

Throughout the evening people moved constantly between the kitchen and the dining room with trays and plates. In the kitchen dishes were being assembled, while behind the bar volunteers practised their latte art – I saw several creative variations on dots. Between cooking and serving, we volunteers had not been forgotten either: when our shift ended, there were fries waiting for us upstairs in the staff room for dinner.

For the 1,500 visitors who came to dine, Happietaria is mainly a nice place to have dinner. For students, it is a project they build together and sustain for a few intense weeks. It is the kind of volunteering that appeals to many people of my generation: working with other people, learning new skills, and with a concrete goal and a clear end date.

Next year, the organisers plan to organise Happietaria again. They will once more be looking for board members, committee members and many volunteers to keep everything running. And, of course, for plenty of guests willing to dine out for a good cause.