Amid SNAP benefit delays, South LA restaurant uses app to distribute discounted meals

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Trump administration said Monday it would provide partial payments to about 42 million food stamp recipients in November, though the White House warned the funds could take as long as months to reach households.

Amid the delays, a South Los Angeles restaurant is among local businesses using a popular app to offer discounted meals to those in need.

Using the Too Good to Go app, people can find and order discounted food from bakeries, cafés, and restaurants like Dulan's On Crenshaw soul food restaurant.

"So every night we have a rush of people coming in to get those meals so it's a it's pretty popular we used to it," said restaurant owner Greg Dulan. "But we're really happy to do it. We feel like we're providing a community benefit by doing it."

According to Dulan, about 30% of his restaurant's customers use SNAP. Using the Too Good To Go app helps the restaurant bridge the gap to the community, he said.



"We love doing it and the customers really love it," said Dulan. "And I think that if more restaurants did it, we could help to combat some of the effects of losing the snap program a little bit."

"The government is kind of a bad situation, but knowing that we will figure this out knowing that restaurants are stepping up to figure it out it's a good change," said Long Beach resident Hunter Marshall, a Dulan's customer.

Blair Imani Ali, creator of Smarter in Seconds, uses her platform to advocate and inform. In an interview with ABC7, she highlighted even more resources that people can tap into.



"There's also the Propel app which is the number one app that's used by 5 million plus SNAP recipients and they have made $50 an emergency snap funds available to eligible families eligible household so that's another place to get resources but there's content creators like myself for raising funds for the different food banks and if you're not somebody who's on snap benefits, you can also consider just donating food to your food bank, but don't even cash to your food bank as well," said Imani Ali.



Dulan's on Crenshaw sells the Too Good To Go meals during the last 30 minutes of its operating hours, but the only way to access those discounted meals is by ordering through the app.