Thieves make off with Ada’s Café food cart

Workers at Ada’s Café, a Palo Alto nonprofit that employs people with disabilities and that serves food and beverages out of its café near the Mitchell Park Library, were dismayed to discover last month that someone stole the food cart that they had been using for years to serve local events.

The green cart, which is equipped with a generator and which allows for refrigeration, went missing overnight from its location across from the Mitchell Park pickleball courts, said Kathleen Foley-Hughes, founder of Ada’s Café. The cart was secured with a chain, which someone apparently cut through before making off with it.

The cart was locked up on the night of June 22, which was a Sunday. Foley-Hughes said that when she came to the cafe on Monday with the intention of cleaning the cart, it was gone.

“Whoever did it must have planned it because it weighs more than 2,000 pounds,” Foley-Hughes said in an interview. “It took four people to push it over there.”

Foley-Hughes said Ada’s Café had been using the cart to serve pickleball players during busy days and tournaments, including the Senior Games that took place in late May. Its plan was to keep the cart near the pickleball courts and the baseball fields for the summer season, while the weather is good. Normally, the cart is stationed just outside the café, which is near the Mitchell Park Library and Community Center, at 3700 Middlefield Road.

“We use it when the Community Center is busy – we put coffee out on that,” she said. “It’s part of who we are. It has definitely provided another opportunity for people to provide more jobs.”

Foley-Hughes estimated that it would cost about $15,000 to replace the cart. She said she had reported the theft to the Palo Alto Police Department but as of this week there appeared to be no leads.

“It’s very upsetting,” Foley-Hughes said. “We’ve had it since the beginning.”

The theft comes at what has otherwise been a period of relative stability for Ada’s, a beloved organization that has had to contend with various fiscal challenges over the past decade. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the café requested community donations after its sales slumped by 80% because of the health emergency. Even before the pandemic, Ada’s faced challenges well familiar to other area restaurants, including rising rents and labor costs.

But Ada’s, which also operates a café in San Francisco, has been able to overcome these challenges with support from donors and, to some extent, from the city. In 2018, the nonprofit received the Tall Tree Award for best nonprofit. And last fall, the City Council recognized its importance to the community when it approved a $45,000 grant out of its contingency fund to support Ada’s Café’s job program. Council member Pat Burt called Ada’s Café “the touchpoint of the entire community to disabled adults.”

“This is where we interact with them, normalize these relationships, and build empathy toward them,” Burt said at the time.

Despite the theft of the cart, Foley-Hughes said the nonprofit has been focusing on the good news, including positive feedback from customers and its plans to open another location in Los Altos. Dozens of residents also responded with supportive messages to Ada’s Café’s post on Facebook, which encouraged anyone with information about the cart theft to reach out to Foley-Hughes at Kathleen@adascafe.org.

“We stay true to the mission and focus on the positive,” Foley-Hughes said. “We really do try to focus on the positive. There are so many good things happening – hopefully this is just a little blip.”