Small acts of kindness often have a domino effect throughout the community. Currently, there are three pay-it-forward cafes in Arizona that make it easy to be kind.
You may have heard of pay-it-forward in the context of coffee or fast-food drive-thrus, which is an excellent way to brighten someone’s day. In fall 2025, paying it forward became something of a social movement to help fellow community members during the uncertainty of SNAP benefits. Restaurants and cafes all over the Grand Canyon State offered easy-to-select menu options that let patrons pay it forward to anyone facing food insecurity. Through preset meal options, certain hours open for donation matches, or by purchasing gift certificates, November food access had become a little more manageable for SNAP recipients despite the historical government shutdown. Though many businesses have since dropped the option, a noble few have decided to maintain an ongoing pay-it-forward option on the menu.
Pay-it-forward cafes
Beanchain Coffee in Mesa
1110 W Southern Ave #8, Mesa
Beanchain Coffee, located in Mesa, is more than a coffee shop. With dedicated desks and community space, the idea of working remotely from a coffee shop is elevated to a new level. The dedicated workspaces include wifi, printing, office supplies, and other amenities to help students and professionals thrive, regardless of socioeconomic background. Organized to allow patrons to socialize, work away from home, and enjoy good meals, Beanchain seeks to be more than a coffee spot, but a social movement.
The comprehensive menu includes coffees, teas, energy drinks, pastries, and even some sandwiches. With the goal of being a welcoming, community-oriented space, Beanchain has a $17 pay-it-forward meal that includes a sandwich, chips, and a drip coffee. Once purchased, the ticket is printed and added to the pay-it-forward board, where someone who needs the meal can redeem it, no questions asked. This way, the meal can be offered to someone without requiring any loopholes or proof of need. You never know what a difference this can make in someone’s day. After all, the “Harry Potter” series was written at a coffee shop by someone who could not afford much more than a drip coffee for the day.
Kind Bean
1020 E Pecos Rd Unit 7, Chandler
Kind Bean in Chandler is a coffee bar with breakfasts, lunches, and sweet treats. Serving only award-winning coffee from particular regions, Kind Bean focuses on high-quality indulgences. With a “Pay it kind,” feature, patrons may nominate an exceptionally kind person to receive recognition for all that they do, while pay-it-forward items are done through purchasing gift cards for future potential customers to use.
The Pay-it-kind is unique to this coffee spot, as it asks patrons to think about a generous person they know who is worthy of recognition and celebration. This thoughtful assessment can have a profound effect—when you think about the most generous person you know, it encourages you, too, to be generous. The pay-it-forward gift card option allows you to show kindness to another within a budget fit to you. As many say, paying it forward tends to come back around.
Lovebite Dumplings
16 E Roosevelt St, Phoenix
Lovebite Dumplings is a Gen Z, local, and woman-owned restaurant with an artsy flair. In response to the SNAP benefit insecurity in the fall of 2025, this restaurant began offering pay-it-forward meals and never dropped it as a menu option.
The fast food concept menu consists of straightforward food boxes that include a base of noodles, rice, or greens, your choice of dumplings, and several sauce options. Free of added junk—the company uses more colorful language—the fast food leans to the healthier side, ensuring nutritious bites. Popular among downtown Phoenicians, Lovebites is a hotspot for quick, healthy-minded meals.
To pay it forward for someone else to enjoy, simply create an online order, select the $13 pay-it-forward option, and select for pickup. This ensures that someone in need has access to a high-quality meal in the heart of Phoenix.
Other ways to pay-it-forward
The number of cafes with pay-it-forward options may be limited, but that doesn’t mean you are. It is possible to pay-it-forward at any restaurant or cafe by picking up the tab for another patron, offering to pay for someone you see doing the math on what they can afford, or by simply paying for a gift card and leaving it for someone who may need it.
There is no right or wrong way to give kindness, and even when pay-it-forward isn’t sponsored by a business, it is still possible and admirable. If you would like some other ways to practice paying it forward before leaping into doing your own thing, here are a couple of streamlined pay-it-forward options.
C.A.M.P.
Community Action Market and Produce, or C.A.M.P., is a produce program present in three Arizona counties. It offers up to 60 pounds of rescued produce for only $16 preorder or $15 cash in person. Operating on both a pre-order and first-come, first-served basis, volunteers from the area set up the boxes and passed out the produce for roughly one-hour increments in various locations. The boxes are composed of produce that has been rescued from becoming waste, and is available to all, not strictly low-income households. Some produce is imperfect, some is beginning to turn, and some is like it was picked right from the plant! From repeated personal experience, the majority of the produce in the box is high quality and not ready to turn.
During the devastating fall floods, this organization distributed free produce boxes to communities most impacted, such as Globe-Miami, thanks largely to the pay-it-forward pre-order program. When pre-ordering a box, there is a streamlined selection to buy up to $800 of pre-ordered boxes so others may pick up a box free of charge. Simply purchasing a single pay-it-forward box for $16 is enough to supplement a family’s produce for up to a month.
A bonus is that most volunteers are from the communities they serve, meaning they know which people could most benefit from the free box. This is one impactful way to pay it forward for those willing to cook at home.
Helpings Cafe and Catering
3333 E Van Buren St,
While not a pay-it-forward cafe in the same sense, Helpings Cafe and Catering pays it forward with each purchase. This nonprofit cafe in Phoenix is a subsidiary of UMOM. “Your coffee, breakfast, or catered team lunch helps restore hope, rebuild lives, and end homelessness for families and single women in our community.”
Each purchase goes to funding UMOM. UMOM is a homeless shelter that works side by side with each individual’s case to address homelessness holistically. Phoenix-based UMOM “exists to restore that peace: to give every family safety, stability, and hope for the future.” Paying for food here is a way to actively help restore housing to those in need. This would be another place to look into leaving gift cards, buying food for those on the receiving end, or simply making it a regular lunch spot to show support.
Regardless of where or when you pay-it-forward, may the joy of giving keep the momentum going, spreading some much-needed kindness throughout the community and state at large.
