Khora is closing its social kitchen space in Kypseli

After six years of sharing food, stories, and solidarity in Kypseli, the time has come to say goodbye to our beloved space in Kastalias 13. Our last food service will be on Friday 13th June.

Since its origins in 2016 Khora’s collective has had food and the act of cooking together at its core. We have always cooked together with love as a force for aggregation, strength and social change. We have cooked on the street, on rooftops, in occupations, in warehouses and in our old space in Neapoli. In December of 2019 Khora collective opened a social kitchen and a restaurant in Kypseli with the objective of creating a space where people from any background and social class could share a meal under the same roof. Food that was cooked collectively with dignity, respect and fresh produce. 

For us at Khora, cooking and sharing food was an excuse to meet the other, to listen and share life, discuss how to organise together and how to learn from others. Together, we have struggled in a city where capitalist mechanisms make us more individualistic and disable our agency to choose, act, make and fight for a collective life worth living. In Khora’s social kitchen, food was that agent, that catalyst, a powerful yet simple tool that spoke clearly, without the need for translation, despite our many languages. We also understood food as a site of anti-border resistance – a way to build solidarity that transcends walls, fences, documents, and nations.

This space became a lived experiment of a future in which everyone has food, where everyone could cook for themselves and each other while sharing the same table. In Khora’s Social Kitchen we dared to imagine how that future could be. 

We worked during the pandemic period, preparing more than 1000 meals per day to ensure continued access to food to those who were denied it by the governmental and non governmental agencies. We ensured that during that period people could have at least one meal a day without being harassed by racist policies and police who often target(ed) people already living very precarious lives.  After the pandemic we gradually returned to our restaurant space, providing free, hot, nutritious vegetarian meals four days out of seven, serving 600-800 portions every week. 

Everything for free and open to all.

Khora Social Kitchen in Kypseli has been a space of connection. So many people – from near and far – have passed through here, contributed, laughed, worked, cooked, played, discussed, decided and built something special together, something worth living for. 

Khora, as other civic initiatives, suffer the effects of increasing gentrification and neoliberal processes making the lives of us living in this city increasingly more difficult. Over the years, Khora has not received any funding from any institution, the EU, governments or other border regimes. It is no longer possible to cover the rising rental costs with our modes of fundraising. 

The building where we cooked and ate together will most certainly become another space that separates us in exchange for money, our lives and our collective agency.

This closing marks the end of a chapter, but not the end of our work. Khora has always adapted to changing needs and realities, and this moment is no different. We carry forward everything we’ve learned from this space and from the many people who made it what it is.

We want to say a huge thank you to our partners, workers, our volunteers, our neighbours, and every single person who walked through the door. Your support, presence, and solidarity made it possible. We will keep you updated on what comes next for Khora.

Big love. Big respect.

Free food for all.

Free Palestine and the end of all colonial projects.