Food drop-in Everybody Eats sees new diners since lockdown.

Everybody Eats is feeding new faces after reopening to New Zealand’s changed economy.

Auckland’s ground-breaking charitable eatery believe they can be a part of the solution in the post-Covid environment.

The “pay as you feel” system was founded in 2017 by Nick Loosley, who was named Kiwibank New Zealand Local Hero of the Year in February.

At pandemic level three the charity began delivering food to homes.

Since level two its restaurant in Onehunga has reopened, initially for two nights a week and now for five.

“Everybody is welcome, everybody can dine, they can volunteer and if neither of those things are viable or make any sense to them then they can donate money,” said Mr Loosley.

A donation of $10 will go to feeding three people at Everybody Eats.

Mr Loosely said that while they were seeing new faces, there hasn’t been a dramatic increase in customers since lockdown.

“Typically, it takes a while once we open for people to know because a lot of it happens through word of mouth.”

The Everybody Eats restaurant in Onehunga usually serves 120 per night.

Mr Loosley said over 50% of the diners are regulars.

The Everybody Eats pop up store in Gemmayze Street off Karangahape Road remains closed, due to it breaching the mass gatherings rules of level two.

Mr Loosley said the pop up has an average of 300 customers every Monday night when in operation.

However, running a charitable organisation through lockdown hasn’t been easy.

“It will have a huge impact on us if our landlords try to get us to pay full rent over the lockdown period and for the current months, when we haven’t been trading as normally as we would be,” said Mr Loosley.

Everybody Eats is now open from 6-8pm every weeknight in Onehunga at 306 Onehunga Mall Road.