Government scolds are insisting that a woman who opened her home to a few friends and neighbors stop offering them breakfast.
Because she hasn’t obtain official permission to be a good neighbor, and, of course, subjected herself to the government inspections that officials like.
It is the Center Square that has the details about “small-town Missouri resident Kathy Kite.”
The grandmother has been warned by her local health department to stop being a nice neighbor, and now the Goldwater Institute has taken up her cause, giving the government a deadline to respond or face a lawsuit.
“Citizens should not be required to get the government’s permission before offering passers-by some coffee and a bite to eat while they socialize,” Dave Roland, of the Goldwater Institute.
The report explained how the situation developed several months ago: A local convenience shop stopped serving breakfast and when Kite asked about that, the store employees suggested she do it, and sent some locals her way.
“I said, OK, come on over, guys. I’ll make you breakfast,” Kite told the Center Square. “So the next morning, I got up at like 4 o’clock in the morning because they come at like five.”
Currently, she’s been making about two dozen servings, for about eight or 10 people, six days a week. Without charge.
She does take donations.
“My mom and dad were raised in the Depression, and so we were raised hearing the stories of how they went hungry,” Kite told The Center Square. “My mom once told me, she said, ‘You never know when you’re entertaining an angel. So if someone comes to your door, you welcome them in, and you give them something to drink. If they’re hungry, you feed them.’”
🚨A MO-04 grandma is being told she needs a commercial kitchen to keep serving FREE breakfasts to her neighbors.
Kathy Kite said it best: “They are my family.”
This is exactly the kind of overreach that frustrates hardworking Missourians. We should be making it easier—not…
— Rep. Mark Alford (@RepMarkAlford) August 27, 2026
A Missouri grandmother who’s been cooking free breakfasts for her small community was threatened with fines and jail time by the county health department — and she’s refusing to back down.
Kathy Kite of Harrisburg, Missouri, started serving homemade breakfasts after the local… pic.twitter.com/wh5uWwUtWa
— Fox News Flash (@FoxNews_Flash) August 26, 2026
Someone, anonymously, claimed to the health department that the food made people sick and the home was “very dirty and she had a lot of cats that made it unsanitary.”
Kite said she’s heard of no one feeling ill, and she has no cats. Her daughter runs a commercial cleaning service and helps as needed.
It was the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services that wrote Kite in July threatening court action if she continued, unless she obtained a “permit or a commercial kitchen,” which would cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The letter threatens, “A person shall not operate a food establishment without a valid permit to operate issued by the regulatory authority.”
A department official even suggested the law is unclear, stating, “It is not illegal to serve food to family and friends. Food establishments are required to have a permit.”
The statement suggested Kite was running a “food establishment.”
Goldwater confirms food codes across the country fail to clearly distinguish between commercial food establishments and noncommercial food service.
It’s not the first time such a dispute has developed, the Center Square reported, citing a St. Louis paster who served food to the homeless, before he came under fire.
Roland said a key factor is that Kite has been serving people “in her own home.”
