When I took over our Parker Street space in December 2025 — a former cooking school — I knew from the beginning that I didn’t want it to be just a home for Sichuan Kitchen SLO. For years before we had our own kitchen, we were the recipients of other businesses’ generosity, letting us pop up in their spaces, serve our food, and share Sichuan culture with the community. When we finally had a space of our own, I knew I wanted to reciprocate. I wanted this kitchen and this parking lot to be a place where other chefs, organizations, and communities could come and share their cultures through the lens of food.

That instinct led to a conversation and eventually to this event.

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to work alongside Matt and Samantha, who led the City’s engagement and execution of the Lunar New Year Festival. After the festival, I offered our space to host any city events that could promote diversity and cultural understanding through food. What followed was a series of conversations that grew into this event – At the Table of Belonging. A key moment came when Matt and Sam sat down with students from the Armenian Students Association at Cal Poly, a conversation that helped crystallize what this event could and should be.

At the Table of Belonging is part of a new initiative called The Belonging Project; this specific event is a community gathering that brings Cal Poly cultural clubs into the SLO community. Each club sets up a booth to share information about their culture and works with Sichuan Kitchen SLO to serve a representative dish from their club’s culinary tradition right out of our kitchen. It’s a collaboration between the city’s Belonging Project, Cal Poly’s vibrant student community, and a little Sichuan kitchen on Parker Street that just wants to feed people and keep the conversation going.

A big credit goes to Matt and Samantha for doing the heavy organizational lifting to make this happen. Events like this don’t come together without people who are genuinely committed to the work.

Why This Matters

San Luis Obispo is a beautiful place to live. The weather is extraordinary, the scenery is stunning, and it’s dangerously easy to stay in the bubble of sunny skies and seventy-degree afternoons and forget that the rest of the world exists. Comfort can quietly close our minds if we let it.

Events like this one exist to push back against that. They remind us that our community is more diverse than it might appear on the surface, and that diversity deserves space to be seen and celebrated. San Luis Obispo, and Cal Poly especially, has significant cultural representation with students and community members from all over the world who carry their histories, languages, and food traditions with them. This event is a chance for that richness to shine.

And food, I believe, is one of the most powerful vehicles for that kind of connection.

Everyone eats. Every culture expresses itself through food. And when you sit down and share a meal with someone, especially something made from a tradition you might not be familiar with — something shifts. You become a little more open, a little more curious, a little more willing to listen. Shared meals create vulnerability in the best way. They remind us of our common humanity before we get to our differences.

That’s why one of the centerpieces of this event is a long communal table a deliberate choice to encourage strangers to sit down together, share food, and maybe leave as something more than strangers. Alongside the table, each club’s booth will offer cultural information, giving guests a chance to learn as well as eat.

You are Invited

This event is for everyone. You don’t need to be a student, a foodie, or an expert in any particular culture to show up and have a good time. You just need to be curious and hungry.

We hope to see you there! Event details are here.