Chicago was freezing in November 1930. The Great Depression had hit hard and thousands of people were lining up every day just to get a warm meal. Their coats were thin, pockets empty and stomachs growling. But the big banner above the line brought a bit of hope: “Free Soup Coffee & Doughnuts for the Unemployed.”
The man behind that kindness was none other than Al Capone — the same Al Capone who ran Chicago’s underworld with bootlegging, gambling and violence.
Capone wasn’t exactly known for his generosity. He was known for his power, his millions made from illegal liquor and the bloodshed that came with it, including the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, when seven men were gunned down under his orders.
But by the end of 1930, Chicagoans had bigger problems than organized crime. The economy had collapsed and people were desperate just to survive.
A City in Crisis
After the stock market crashed in 1929, unemployment soared. In early November 1930, more than 75,000 Chicagoans registered their names for relief. Nearly a third of them needed immediate help. These weren’t the “Madison Street hobos” that the papers talked about, many were well-dressed men who’d simply lost everything.
A week later, the Chicago Tribune revealed something unexpected: the man who had rented out a storefront at 935 South State Street to serve free meals was none other than Al Capone himself. His soup kitchen was feeding about 2,200 people every day, three times a day.
“He couldn’t stand it to see those poor devils starving, and nobody else seemed to be doing much, so the big boy decided to do it himself,” one of Capone’s associates told a local paper.
Inside, the setup was simple but welcoming. Smiling women in white aprons served coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast, soup and bread for lunch and the same again for dinner. No one was turned away or was asked questions. And if someone wanted seconds — they got them.
Thanksgiving with “Scarface”
On Thanksgiving Day 1930, Capone’s soup kitchen served food to about 5,000 Chicagoans. Originally, he wanted to offer turkey and cranberry sauce, until someone stole 1,000 turkeys in a local heist. Even though Capone had nothing to do with it, he was afraid he’d be blamed. So, he changed the menu to beef stew at the last minute.
The soup kitchen only made Capone’s legend grow. Many saw him as a sort of Robin Hood, a man who defied the government to take care of ordinary people. Newspapers reported that he often handed out money to widows and orphans.
During Prohibition, he supplied booze when the government banned it. Now, during the Depression, he was giving out food when the government couldn’t.
As the Bismarck Tribune put it, “A hungry man is just as glad to get soup and coffee from Al Capone as from anyone else.”
The Irony of It All
Writer Mary Borden, in Harper’s Magazine, captured the strange contradiction perfectly. She called Capone “an ambidextrous giant who kills with one hand and feeds with the other.” She even pointed out that the line for Capone’s soup kitchen often stretched right past Chicago’s police headquarters, where evidence of his crimes was being kept.
The numbers behind the kitchen were impressive. Every day, it used around 350 loaves of bread, 100 dozen rolls, 50 pounds of sugar and 30 pounds of coffee, costing about $300 daily. Capone could easily afford it, on the same day the soup kitchen made headlines, his bookkeeper Fred Ries testified in court that Capone’s gambling houses cleared $25,000 a month in profits.
Still, not everyone believed Capone paid for it all. Some thought he used his usual tricks — extortion and bribery — to get supplies. During a 1932 trial involving Capone’s ally Daniel Serritella, it was revealed that ducks donated for Serritella’s charity drive had somehow ended up being served at Capone’s soup kitchen instead.
The Press and the Public
Reporters never spotted Capone personally serving food but the newspapers couldn’t get enough of the story. Many papers loved the contrast, the feared gangster turned “philanthropist.” Others weren’t so impressed.
The Daily Independent in Murphysboro, Illinois, criticized the public’s admiration, writing, “If anything were needed to make the farce of Gangland complete, it is the Al Capone soup kitchen.” The editorial went on to say, “It would be rather terrifying to see Capone run for mayor of Chicago. We are afraid he would get a tremendous vote. It is even conceivable that he might be elected after a few more stunts like his soup kitchens.”
That prediction wasn’t far off, Capone’s popularity among struggling Chicagoans was real. For many, the government had failed them, but “Scarface” hadn’t.
Capone’s Final Chapter
Capone’s good publicity couldn’t protect him forever. While he was feeding the hungry on State Street, the federal government was quietly building a case against him. In November 1931, just a year after his soup kitchen opened, a jury found him guilty of income-tax evasion.
He would trade his fine suits and expensive cigars for prison clothes. His empire began to crumble.
Still, the image of Chicago’s most dangerous man feeding thousands in the middle of the Depression stuck. It was one of history’s strangest contradictions, a man responsible for terror and bloodshed becoming, for a brief moment, the city’s unexpected savior.
