Montreal restaurant owner gives free meals, soup kitchen on the way

Montreal restaurant owner Abdul Raziq Khan is giving away free meals and plans to open a soup kitchen that offers halal dishes.

For the past three years, Raziq, owner of Mama Khan restaurant, has been distributing free meals in Parc-Extension. In collaboration with the International cultural integration organization, he’s been serving meals every Friday for the last six months at Parc Metro through an initiative called Operation Park X.

“The best thing about the meals, it’s vegan, vegetarian, so anyone can enjoy it. It’s literally white rice, chickpeas, and salad. It’s open for everyone. Our ticket has no requirements. It tells you the address exactly where we are and there’s no requirement needed. Just come in, smile, and you get a free meal,” said Khan.

“These are my brothers and sisters, my family. I love them. I don’t want them suffering. If the authorities are not doing something, we are citizens, we have to take their responsibility,” said Mahmoud Raza Baig, president of the International cultural integration organization.

“The food is delicious. I agree. But I do think it’s because there’s so much food insecurity, the people just want to get free food because of that. And you know, it’s kind of sad, but we’re here to help,” said Hasher Ahmed, a comedian & volunteer with Operation Park X.

“In like 16 minutes the food was gone. And that shows that instability that is currently in our neighborhoods and in our city, you know, in 16 minutes the food was gone.”

In partnership with the Madinah Foundation, Khan aims to open the halal soup kitchen, ensuring that vulnerable individuals—particularly those with dietary restrictions—have access to healthy, nutritious meals.

“So the reason why is because the demand has been growing. So it went from, in my first year, I’ve been given on maybe 100 meals a month. So now the month of Ramadan and 28 days, I’ve given a 1,388 meals. So you can imagine from the numbers in the beginning to the month numbers now, there’s a significant increase. And because of that, I realized I have to do something bigger and that is to open the soup kitchen,” Khan explained.

The soup kitchen is set to open by the end of summer 2025. Khan’s desire to give back comes from his mother, who, when he was a child, would cook and share meals with the community in Parc-Extension.

Now, those daily conversations with people in need still drive him and motivate him to juggle this new project along with his restaurant.

“So it was a day where we gave out 150 meals and unfortunately, someone passed by that did not get the meal. So they were kind of bummed out about it. They were kind of sad about it. So that kind of touched me personally because I was like, hey, look, I’m doing, I just gave out 150 meals, but that’s not enough,” said Khan.

“We need volunteers. We need permanent partnerships, sponsorship donations. […] These are the things that I’m working on outside of the restaurant. It’s something I’m doing on my own time with the restaurant.”

Those who want to help can visit Mama Khan’s website.