A Missouri grandmother says she has no plans to shut down the free breakfast table she opened for neighbors, even after a warning from local health officials raised the possibility of legal action.
Kathy Kite, 55, has made the early-morning routine a daily mission since May, waking at 3:30 a.m. to prepare meals from her home in Harrisburg, a small Missouri community of roughly 300 people situated between Kansas City and St. Louis.
Kite told Fox News that the idea started after the gas station where she works stopped offering breakfast following the Covid pandemic, though customers continued showing up hoping to buy their usual morning meal.
“So one day, I said: ‘You know what guys, just come over to my house and I’ll make you breakfast,’” Kite recalled in the interview.
Word of her home-cooked breakfasts soon spread. Her menu, featuring breakfast burritos, sausage biscuits, egg sandwiches, scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee, began drawing more people to her door.
But Kite said she was taken aback in early July when a notice arrived from the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department, telling her she needed a food permit if she intended to continue serving meals or she could face legal consequences.
According to the letter, which Kite shared with KOMU, the department contacted her after receiving a complaint about the free breakfast operation.
The notice said that to keep feeding members of the community, Kite would have to put in a commercial kitchen, complete the required food permit application and pay the related permitting fees.
Missouri grandmother Kathy Kite was threatened with legal action by her local health department after she began serving free breakfast to her community
Kite has been getting up at 3.30am since May to cook for locals in her small town of Harrisburg
Kite makes egg sandwiches, breakfast burritos, bacon, scrambled eggs, coffee and more. She serves the food at her home and does not ask for payment
Kite told Fox News that the letter, ‘hurt my feelings, and it upset me because I knew at that point I was afraid I was gonna go to jail because the letter stated that if I didn’t stop making breakfast for my community, that I was facing fines and jail.’
‘In order for me to comply with what they’re asking, I would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a commercial kitchen in my home,’ she added.
‘I live in a 115-year-old home. It’s a beautiful home. I’m not gonna jeopardize the integrity of my home to put a commercial kitchen in to make some free burritos.’
She also invited health officials to visit her home to see that it is clean and that she is not ‘doing anything wrong.’
‘I am just a grandma cooking a meal for my friends and family and enjoying life,’ Kite said.
‘I wouldn’t stop feeding my children, I wouldn’t stop feeding my family. I’m not gonna stop feeding my community cause they are my family. This is bigger than that. It’s about love and appreciation because they appreciate what I do.’
In a statement to Fox News, the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department said that it sent the letter after someone who allegedly became ill from Kite’s food submitted a complaint.
The statement further said: ‘Ms. Kite’s home had an open sign, tip jar, advertised food on social media and a sign in her yard — all things that are typically associated with a food establishment.’
Kite said she was scared about potential fines or jail time after receiving the letter from the health department, but she will not stop cooking for her community
The department said it sent the letter after receiving a complaint from someone who allegedly became ill, but Kite contends her home is clean and that she is not ‘doing anything wrong’
Kite began serving breakfast after the gas station where she worked stopped preparing it after Covid
But the department denied threatening jail time and said: ‘No citations or cease-and-desist orders were issued. Our role in public health is to work with food establishments to promote safe food practices and prevent food-borne illnesses.’
Our News Outlet has reached out to the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department for further comment.
Although the department claimed it did not threaten jail time against Kite, a response to the department, penned by attorney Dave Roland of the Goldwater Institute on behalf of the grandmother, said the threat was implied.
Roland wrote that violation of the food code Kite was accused of breaching is a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by fines of up to $2,000 and up to one year in prison.
The attorney wrote: ‘The demands made in your Letter may violate both the US and Missouri Constitutions. Both the federal and state constitutions protect Ms. Kite’s right to host guests in her home, including offering food and refreshments on a non-commercial basis.
‘Any attempt to impose criminal or civil penalties on Ms. Kite for providing food or refreshments to guests in her home on a non-commercial basis would violate constitutional safeguards.’
The lawyer’s letter also requested that the health department explain how Kite’s actions violate the law in more detail and asked if there are any steps she must take that would allow her to keep offering free food to her community without obtaining a permit.
Our News Outlet has reached out to Roland and Kite for further comment.
