In Brewton, a small dining room runs on an unusual business model: there are no prices. At Drexel & Honeybee’s, customers pay whatever they want — or nothing at all — and no one in the dining room ever knows who gave what.
From Church Pantry to Walk to Washington
The restaurant is the life’s work of Eleze “Lisa” Thomas-McMillan, whose fight against hunger stretches back decades. In the early 1990s she started a food pantry at her church that continues serving families who cannot afford groceries. In 2005, she walked from Alabama to Washington, D.C., to draw attention to hunger in America.
Two years before this profile, she and her husband Freddie opened the donations-only restaurant in her hometown, dipping into their retirement savings — most of it his, earned during his career as a Marine — to make it happen.
A Table Where Everyone Is Equal
People from all walks of life line up for the hot, home-cooked meals prepared by Thomas-McMillan and a staff of volunteers. A retired pastor made the trip from Wagarville just to eat lunch and pray for the people inside. College students say the meals are the difference between eating twice a day and three times a day.
Guests never learn who paid for their plate or who simply left a thank-you note in the box. “The point is, you have no more than the other person coming in here,” Thomas-McMillan has said, explaining that the restaurant deliberately keeps donors and recipients anonymous because it doesn’t know — or care — what anyone has.
National Recognition
The little restaurant has drawn outsized attention: Reader’s Digest named Drexel & Honeybee’s the “nicest place in Alabama,” and The Washington Post has featured its story. Carolyn Hart, who volunteers as a server, says Thomas-McMillan’s drive comes from experience — she knew what it was like not to have enough to eat in college and never forgot it.
Thomas-McMillan shares her philosophy in her book, “Living Fulfilled, The Infectious Joy of Serving Others,” and believes other communities could do something similar. “What good would it be for me to have a ton of money and my neighbors are suffering down the street?” she has said.