One World Cafe

There are only two things missing from the One World Cafe: menus and prices.

The lack of menus is easily enough explained.

"I'm not a robot," owner and chef Denise Cerreta says. "I'm not going to cook the same thing every day."

But the cafe, 41 S. 300 East, is the only restaurant Cerreta knows of in the United States that allows customers to set the value of their meals.

There's no cash register in the store — just a money box. Patrons place as much, or as little, as they have or feel their meal was worth in the box.

If they only eat a little bit, they only pay a little bit. If they indulge in soup, salad, an entree and dessert, they pay a little bit more.

The cafe's unique format allows everyone to eat, Cerreta says. It also eliminates waste, because customers don't feel they have to overeat to get their money's worth.

"People say I'm crazy," she says, but her idea seems to be working. While most restaurants — 80 percent by some accounts — don't survive the first year of business, One World Cafe just celebrated its second birthday. And Cerreta says by the end of the month, she'll be in the black for the first time.

Things weren't always so good, though.

Cerreta was practicing acupuncture in the same building the cafe is currently when she said she felt like she reached her "spiritual glass ceiling."

So she ditched the acupuncture gig, focusing instead on running a sandwich and coffee shop.

After a while of serving the same old thing, Cerreta said she felt inspired to break away from the norm, ditching the menu and the price tag. And the very next customer to walk through the door paid what she thought her food was worth.

Still, Cerreta found that running a cafe with no prices had its price, at least at first.

"The first couple of months were very lean," she says. "My car got repossessed. I'd break into a cold sweat every time a power truck pulled up."

Cerreta was the only employee, and she worked long hours every day. Without a car and without enough money to buy food wholesale, she walked to a Wild Oats Marketplace to buy the organic food she used to make her dishes, which were mostly Greek and Italian. She had no real culinary training and made what she knew how to make.

Now Cerreta has nine employees, all of whom she pays a living wage. She's hired real chefs who make up the menu every morning based on what's in season and what's in the fridge. And Cerreta admits the food has gotten a little bit better.

"You fake it until you make," Cerreta says. "Those were hard times, but I learned a lot. I'd never trade that experience for anything."

Perseverance and a belief that what she was doing was important helped her stay true to her ideal, Cerreta says.