What started as a woman feeling called to cook breakfast for a handful of friends has turned into a dispute over food, faith, and government regulations.
Kathy Kite, a resident of Harrisburg, Missouri, began welcoming locals into her home for breakfast back in May after the community’s convenience store stopped serving breakfast following COVID.
Kite works at H-Town, the local convenience store and gas station, and said residents had repeatedly expressed interest in finding a new place to have breakfast. She lives nearby, so she decided to offer an alternative by cooking for her friends and offering up the food for free.
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“I told the old guys that come in there in the mornings that like to play cards, and drink coffee, and eat breakfast, and say they didn’t have any more — I’m like, ‘You guys can come to my house and I’ll do it,’” Kite told CBN News.
So, she started offering breakfast out of her kitchen and people came.
“It all started with just some like sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits,” Kite said.
At first, it was just a few people. But others soon began to come after her loving act was advertised on social media, with 20-25 people regularly coming to her home in the morning; some parents even brought their kids to her house for food before school. Kite gets up at 3:30 a.m. to prepare for the day.
“And it just kind of exploded from there,” Kite said. “So then people were like, ‘Breakfast? We have breakfast in town?’”
Kite doesn’t charge for the meals. There is a place for people to leave money if they choose, but she said those contributions go back into buying ingredients and food.
“It’s not a moneymaker by any means,” she said.
For Kite, feeding people is also deeply connected to her Christian faith.
“For whatever reason, God has put it in my heart that I need to take care of people,” she said. “I like to feed people.”
Kite continued, “In my mind feeding people is loving people.”
But Kite’s breakfast gatherings eventually caught the attention of government officials, with Columbia city officials from the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department reportedly sending a letter telling her she needed a commercial kitchen license to continue operating.
Kite disputes that she is operating a business, though, and said the government’s demands have broken her heart.
“I’m not running a business,” she said. “This is just friends coming over for breakfast. It’s no different than a backyard barbecue or a church gathering.”
Kite said the warning dramatically affected attendance, as some residents became concerned that continuing to visit could cause additional trouble for her. As a result, many stopped coming.
“I went from having probably 20 to 25 to maybe 5 to 8 people,” she said.
Still, Kite isn’t planning to stop, despite admitting she was scared to incur fines or worse. Rather than back down, she sought legal help and has no plans to stop.
“God laid this on me and I just feel like if God brought me to it, God’s going to bring me through it,” Kite said. “I believe in what I’m doing. I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong.”
The Goldwater Institute is helping Kite and has sent a letter to the Boone County health department seeking answers about why they are demanding a commercial kitchen. Officials with the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department told Fox News that Kite has a tip jar, open sign, and is advertising food on social media, indicating elements “associated with a food establishment.”
“No citations or cease-and-desist orders were issued. We also did not threaten jail time,” the statement read. “We sent a letter to Ms. Kite following a complaint we received that food served in her establishment made someone ill. Our role in public health is to work with food establishments to promote safe food practices and prevent food-borne illnesses.”
The text continued, “There are safe, allowable ways to provide homemade food to the community with and without a food permit. We regularly work together with individuals and businesses who want to provide free food to the community.”
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