Saqib Keval and Norma Listman — who met in Oakland, co-founded People's Kitchen Collective, and went on to open the Michelin-starred Masala y Maiz in Mexico City — are organizing the first international "paga lo que puedas" day on August 26. Bombera, Reem's, Understory, and Sfizio in Oakland are among the 75-plus restaurants signed on across more than two dozen cities.

The people behind Masala y Maiz, a Michelin-starred Mexico City restaurant with Oakland in its DNA, are organizing the first worldwide "paga lo que puedas" day for August 26 — and six Bay Area rooms have signed on.

Saqib Keval and Norma Listman met in the Bay Area before relocating to Mexico City to open their restaurant. Keval is a co-founder of People's Kitchen Collective in Oakland, which was always pay-what-you-can; Listman, born in Texcoco, Mexico, came to the Bay in the 1990s and worked at Oakland restaurants Tamarindo and Camino. Masala y Maiz — a fusion of Mexican, Indian, and East African cuisine — was scheduled to open September 19, 2017, but a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck central Mexico the day before. Keval and Listman spent the following month delivering hot meals to first responders before the restaurant opened. It has since earned a Michelin star.

Pay-what-you-can days started early at Masala y Maiz: the full menu goes out without prices, and guests pay what they can or what they feel is appropriate. The concept met resistance in Mexico City's restaurant industry at first — Keval told Berkeleyside that restaurateurs and food media "would send us angry messages because they didn't understand the idea." The team kept at it. Last year they brought other Mexico City restaurants in for a city-wide day, advertising not through food media but by distributing flyers on public transit, targeting workers commuting in from the outskirts. "We had lines around the block," Keval said, "and the majority of people had never been to those restaurants."

For August 26, the event scales globally: more than 75 restaurants across more than two dozen cities — from Havana to Mumbai — have joined. In the East Bay, Bombera, Reem's, Understory, and Sfizio are participating; Merkado in San Francisco and Valley Swim Club in Sonoma are also on board.

For Bombera chef and owner Dominica Rice-Cisneros — whose Dimond/Fruitvale restaurant has previously fundraised for People's Kitchen — it's a chance to seat the workers who already move through the neighborhood daily: postal workers, bank clerks, grocery crews. The date itself is strategic: Keval and Listman chose a Wednesday in August because both are slow for the industry, reducing the financial exposure for operators.

"In the Bay Area, people are a little more used to the idea of pay what you can," Keval told Berkeleyside. "People's Kitchen Collective was always pay what you can." What started as a model imported from Oakland into a skeptical Mexico City dining scene is now going the other direction — back to the Bay, and to two dozen cities beyond.