Astoria Resident's Pop-Up Raises Nearly 60K For Charity

ASTORIA, QUEENS — When Eli Goldman started baking bread for friends during the first sourdough-crazed months of the pandemic he didn’t expect the operation to go any farther than his Astoria balcony.

“In April I was baking bread and lowering it in a basket like Rapunzel from my third-floor balcony and then donating the money to charity,” he said, adding that the operation, which is a side-gig to his full-time fundraising job, started as a way for him to raise money for charity and positively contribute to the community during some of the most devastating months of the pandemic.

At first Goldman was selling to friends and friends-of-friends, but as his audience grew, he decided to make his operation “a little more professional” — instead of coordinating bread drops through his personal Instagram, he launched an account for Tikkun Bread, which later became Tikkun BBQ as he delved into cooking smoked meats.

“Tikkun is short for tikkun olam, which is a Jewish philosophical idea that you as a Jew are supposed to do something to help address the issues you see around you, and not just sit on the sidelines,” he explained of his mission-driven pop-up's name.

Goldman eventually set up a smoker near his apartment, expecting that Tikkun BBQ might raise one or two-thousand dollars. But, after Astoria Mutual Aid posted a video of his efforts on their Instagram he began to connect with other local businesses, and his pop-up officially took off, now having raised nearly 60,000 dollars for different organizations.

One of Tikkun BBQ’s first pop-ups outside the vicinity of Goldman’s Astoria apartment was at the Astoria Food Pantry, where he prepared ribs — procured for him by the folks at Comfortland, where he later did another pop-up — for people at the pantry.

From there Goldman began having pop-ups at restaurants and bars around Astoria and Long Island City, including Comfortland, Sek’ənd sun, ICONYC Brewing, and Heart Of Gold, which he says has the added benefit of “driving customers to a local business, which gets money from people tipping them and buying drinks.”

Although the fundraising model has changed since the days on Goldman's balcony, raising money for different organizations — from Safe Horizons, to the ACLU, and other local orgs like the Astoria Food Pantry — is still a central part of Tikkun BBQ.

When he buys ingredients out of pocket, Goldman keeps 50 percent of proceeds to cover the cost, but when he does a pop-up at a place like Comfortland that buys all the ingredients, they donate 50 to 100 percent of the proceeds.

“I never started this as a business to make money for myself,” he said, adding that the pop-ups are rewarding for him in other ways. “I’ve met more of my neighbors doing this than I have in the past five or six years of living here,” he said, pointing out that Tikkun BBQ is a community centric endeavor.

“If the people don’t come and make a donation, and if a business and their staff don’t want to host me, then I can't do it anymore. I am the driver so to speak, but I understand that for me to be the driver there’s a whole team of mechanics making this car drive," he said.

Goldman has some far off ideas of starting a mission-driven restaurant or food truck that hires formerly incarcerated people and has transparent wages, but for now, that’s not his focus.

“This has already succeeded and gone farther than anything I dreamed of originally,” he said, adding that “if Tikkun BBQ stays as a pop-up that I do once or twice a month to help drive customers to local businesses and get some donations, I’m happy.”

Tikkun BBQ's next pop up is at Comfortland from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on 4/20 — where all proceeds will be split between Astoria Food Pantry and The Connected Chef— followed by a pop-up at Bellucci Pizza from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on 4/24, which marks a year since Tikkun BBQ first launched.