Joycelyn Lee

pit stop community cafe kl, co-founder

Women in leadership roles that puts community before themselves. Initiated by Joycelyn Lee & Andrea Tan, Pit Stop Community Cafe officially opens its shutter for the first time in the heart of central Kuala Lumpur circa 2016.

“Our concept was actually very simple - to give the urban poor and homeless a place to come to, sit down, and to have a nice warm meal. We wanted to forge a sort of community bond, and to remind them that they are human.”

We spoke with Joyce, who shared with us how impacting the homeless community starts with removing as many barriers as possible, regardless of background, race, gender, & class. “That meant all of us are family, and it is a given that we are going to serve the best that we can to your families, right?”. Digging deep into her Peranakan roots, Joyce is inspired by the kitchen being the “perut rumah”, the heart of the house for the homeless.

“We like working with Table & Apron because we are very like-minded. We like to cultivate the atmosphere of a family or a community”, Joyce fondly adds when asked to speak about our relationship with Pit Stop over the years - not just as business partners, but also later on as friends who share the same enthusiasm for food.

“You see, men don’t just live on rice alone. Sometimes it’s that little touch of care and luxury that will really bring tears to someone’s eyes. When Table & Apron reached out to us with cookies to share with the community, that’s exactly what the cookies did. The cookies showed that it’s not just about survival.” 

Joyce’s compass after years of running Pit Stop was about creating sustainable ownership over community service. Her mission strikes at the heart of what service meant.

“We wanted to change the language of service. You can actually hear the difference between ‘I want to give back to charity’ versus ‘I want to invest in my community’. That’s what we’re looking to educate people.”

Pit Stop Community Cafe continues to not only provide food and support to the homeless and urban poor, comprising of 180 - 200 people, 4 times a week, but also to 16 other organizations such as orphanages, shelters, old folks homes, frontliners and more during this pandemic. While supporting this network, they’ve found food rescue during the MCO being difficult. On one hand, farmers discard excess produce due to low demand with the MCO impact, whilst soup kitchens struggle to provide an ever-burgeoning demand.

Food insecurity & food wastage aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s a paradox that restaurants have first-hand opportunity in tackling, funneling energy and attention from our audience to real impactful issues that will improve society as a whole. At Table & Apron, we believe that higher purpose is reason enough for our existence and Pit Stop serves as our go-to for that function. 

If you’d like to learn more about how you can play a role in supporting and investing in your community, visit Pit Stop Community Cafe KL. 

Click to read more about their stories