Not far from Times Square’s neon and bustle, warm lights glow from the simple, white-brick facade of a small restaurant, P.S. Kitchen. Inside, patrons at crisp white tables dine on vegan comfort food, from orzo alfredo to plant-based BBQ burgers.
Humble as P.S. Kitchen might seem amid New York City’s famed power dining spots, it is a bold expression of generosity. Profits are donated to charities in the United States and abroad, but, more important, the staff roster is filled almost exclusively with people who typically have a hard time grabbing the first rung on a career ladder — including the recently incarcerated, victims of domestic violence, and the homeless.
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Not far from Times Square’s neon and bustle, warm lights glow from the simple, white-brick facade of a small restaurant, P.S. Kitchen. Inside, patrons at crisp white tables dine on vegan comfort food like orzo Alfredo and plant-based barbecue burgers.
Humble as P.S. Kitchen might seem amid New York City’s famed power dining spots, it is a bold expression of generosity. Profits are donated to charities in the United States and abroad, but, more important, the staff roster is filled almost exclusively with people who typically have a hard time grabbing the first rung on a career ladder — including the recently incarcerated, victims of domestic violence, and the homeless.
This social enterprise is a labor of love for April Tam Smith, a managing director at a global investment bank who moonlights as an unusual philanthropist. Tam Smith, 38, started P.S. Kitchen in 2017 with her husband, Graham, and a few others. In the five years since, more than 100 people have gotten a leg up in the work force through jobs at P.S. Kitchen. Also, April and Graham have joined with friends and P.S. Kitchen supporters and customers to help create four schools in war-zone areas of Congo — P.S. Justice, P.S. Kindness, P.S. Grace, and P.S. Nevaeh.
“An angel has landed in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen,” wrote the New York Post when the restaurant opened.
Tam Smith’s charitable impulse reaches far beyond P.S. Kitchen. In the early 2010s, she made regular trips with a friend to volunteer at orphanages in South Africa. After she and Graham met — at a Bible study that April was leading — and married, they committed for a period to “reverse tithing,” giving away 90 percent of what they earned. “That’s part of our love story,” April says. (Graham, who also works in finance, once offered several thousand dollars to a homeless man he befriended; the man refused, saying the money would interfere with the friendship they had established.)
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Through a family connection, April was introduced to Cynthia Petterson, founder of Share Hope, a social enterprise in Haiti. Petterson, the daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic who ran her family’s garment-manufacturing business in the Bronx, started Share Hope to create well-paying jobs and strengthen the clothes-manufacturing industry in the island country. Profits are plowed back into health, education, and other social programs for factory workers.
APRIL TAM SMITH
New York City Age: 38 Runs P.S. Kitchen, a social enterprise. Supports Justice Rising and Share Hope.
April and Graham spent a week of their honeymoon with Petterson and Share Hope. They had been weighing starting P.S. Kitchen but were wary of the risks — including a 15-year lease on the space and start-up costs that would eventually total two years’ worth of their combined income.
The week with Petterson, however, persuaded them to take the plunge. “I saw the impact of jobs and the dignity that work can give people,” Tam Smith says. Petterson had taken a second mortgage on her home to expand Share Hope. “I remember saying to Graham: ‘If she can do this, we can do it.’ It really was the turning point that gave us the courage to move forward.”
Charity as a Postscript
The name P.S. Kitchen is a nod to the fact that the restaurant’s charity is a special postscript to every meal. Share Hope is one of the organizations to which P.S. Kitchen donates its profits. Tam Smith, a major donor, is also on the board and is committed to its work in every way, Petterson says. “April can come to tears in a moment because her heart is right there in everything that she’s doing.”
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Justice Rising, a network of schools in war-torn regions of Congo, is another organization that has won Tam Smith’s heart. Cassandra Lee and her husband, Edison, founded the organization in 2015. “We started building one-off schools,” Lee says. “We’d ask: Where does no one else want to work? And we’d start working in those areas.”
courtesy of Share Hope
April Tam Smith visits Share Hope, a social enterprise for garment-industry workers in Haiti. She serves on its board, and her New York restaurant helps support it.
Tam Smith joined the Justice Rising board not long after meeting Cassandra. “We had been wanting to ask her, but we were like, ‘Oh, she’s so busy,’” Lee says. “She ended up coming to us and saying, ‘I’m not sure if you need an extra board member, but I would love to be a part of this mission.’”
During the pandemic, Tam Smith found herself on the receiving end of a lot of support for a change. New York’s restaurant industry was hard hit, but friends and supporters came alongside to help P.S. Kitchen stay open and even provide thousands of meals to first responders and the homeless. “For so long, I felt like I was the one who had to make P.S. Kitchen work,” Tam Smith says. “But so many people stepped up.”
Tam Smith, who was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States with her parents, has recently been adding refugees to the P.S. Kitchen staff. “People are using the restaurant as a stepping stone to longer-term opportunities,” she says. “That’s really grabbing the immigrant part of me.”
