The Most Important Restaurant Day of the Year

Here’s one incredibly easy way to help an incredibly important cause this weekend: Go out to eat on Sunday. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, wine and dine at the restaurants participating in the inaugural Human Rights Day DFW on December 10.

Dozens of your favorite eateries across the city will commemorate the day by donating a percentage of sales to Human Rights Initiative of North Texas. It’s a win-win.

Human Rights Initiative is a non-profit organization which provides free, full legal and social services to immigrant survivors of human rights abuses within the local community. Culinary hotspots like Mirador, CBD Provisions, Overeasy, Nora, Four Corners Brewing Co., Americano and many others have agreed to give 5 percent of their sales from the day, or $250 (whichever is greater) to help HRI’s crucial efforts and raise awareness. Other restaurants have signed on to participate and will contribute a flat $250 fee.

While it’s a new tradition for Dallas, Human Rights Day has been internationally recognized for decades. HRI’s goal is for it to become an annual event in DFW.

“Human Rights Day DFW will encourage us to carve out December 10th each year, to think and talk about what human rights means to each of us,” Sanjeeb Samanta, Leader of Global Customer Support Operations at Texas Instruments and the HRI board member who conceived the event, said in a statement. “On this day, we’ll come together as a community to show we care for those who have suffered human rights abuse.”

The Dallas food community has rallied around HRI’s efforts, including renowned chef and culinary director of The Statler, Graham Dodds, former restaurant critic Leslie Brenner, Oddfellows’ head chef Anastacia Quinones and others, who have joined HRI as advisors for the event.

Four Corners Brewing Co. is taking the generosity up a notch and donating 20 percent of every beer sold on Sunday to HRI. Cheers to that!

You’ll find the full list of participating restaurants on the organization’s website. If you can’t snag a table, you can still make a donation to HRI online.