City restaurant will serve up 250 hot meals to take away – no questions asked
A Hull restaurateur and his team will be repeating a festive gesture after the success of a Christmas dinner giveaway last year. Kye Ali and members of staff at Agora by The Greek, in Princes Avenue, will be pulling out the stops on Christmas morning to serve up to 250 Christmas meals, for free, to the homeless or anyone else in need in the city.
Cooked meals and a hot drink will be dished up from 10am to 1pm on December 25, at the restaurant at 78A Princes Avenue, for people to take away and enjoy. The gesture means that Kye’s own team will be giving up some of their Christmas Day to help others less fortunate.
Kye said: “We are hoping to do 250 takeaway meals, a traditional Christmas lunch, for the second time. Last year was fantastic – we were at the Marina and about 100 people came down.
“We drove around the various hostels and old people’s homes afterwards with the remaining meals so nothing was wasted. The Marina was maybe a bit out of the way for people which is why we’re doing this year’s giveaway at Agora.”
Kye said: “Last Christmas we heard some wonderful stories from people – some funny stories too. This is for anyone in need who would like a Christmas dinner.
“Someone doesn’t need to be homeless. It may be an older couple, for instance, whose kids are away, or they don’t have kids, and they’d like a dinner.
“The meals will have been prepped in advance the day before – we’ll have a bit of a production line going – and we will be heating them up and handing them out, no questions asked. There was that worry from a few people last year that they had to prove something about their circumstances.”
Kye added: “The big takeaway for us from last year’s event was how much it brought the team together. They got time to spend some of Christmas Day together.”
When Kye first decided on the Christmas dinner giveaway last year, the discussions started three months beforehand. He said at the time: “The idea was to help the homeless but this is for any person who is struggling.”
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