Our History

Over-the-Rhine Kitchen was founded in 1976 by Father Thomas Bokenkotter and his colleagues. Fr. Bokenkotter had visited Dorothy Day’s House of Hospitality in New York City and realized Cincinnati needed a kitchen to provide a meal without obligatory religious service for the 80 percent of the 10,000 residents in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood living in poverty.

Fr. Bokenkotter recruited volunteers and, with just $700, began serving meals in a building on Main Street. The Over-the-Rhine kitchen moved several times before settling, in 2003, into its location at 1620 Vine Street. The Walnut Hills Kitchen was housed in the Geiger House, a property named for Tom Geiger, who helped open the original Over-the-Rhine Kitchen. and has served neighbors in Walnut Hills for 38 years.

In 2022, Talbert House (Geiger House’s owner) notified Queen City Kitchen of its plan to tear down the building and replace it with apartments for homeless veterans; QCK would have to move. Working with consultants from OneSource Center for Nonprofit Excellence, QCK found new quarters at the Walnut Hills Baptist Church, several blocks away from Geiger House and moved in December 2023. The Church provides space for meals, a kitchen to cook and from which to serve, food and pantry storage areas and offices for QCK staff. 2024 begins a new chapter as QCK delivers its mission through six weekly meals, and access to a choice pantry for neighbors in Walnut Hills.

Fr. Bokenkotter taught that people experience poverty for many reasons. While we seek larger answers, we can act to alleviate hunger. This reflection continues to inspire the work of Queen City Kitchen today.

Our Future

The move from Geiger House prompted the board to search its focus and agreed that its mission was best tied to serving neighbors in the Walnut Hills neighborhood.  Our ‘temporary’ location at the Walnut Hills Baptist Church allows us to do that every week.  On the board’s agenda is the question of what to do with the Over The Rhine property, where kitchen operations were shuttered in 2022 due to Covid 19, and how best to structure our food distribution in light of changes in the Walnut Hills community.