Grand reopening for Sydney's busiest free restaurant

One of these was an unexpected gift from a man who lived in a cave.

"There was a homeless man who lives in a cave and he just got a letter saying that his uncle had died and left him $15,000.

"He looked at me and he said, `Bill I want to give it to you so you can feed people'," Crews said at the reopening of the refurbished restaurant in Ashfield on Tuesday.

The Exodus Foundation's Loaves and Fishes Free Restaurant provides almost 1000 meals a day around Sydney to the poor and homeless.

Crews, who founded the restaurant 23 years ago, told reporters it all started with him opening the local church doors in 1986 and putting on roasts.

Soon more than 90 people were coming for meals, sparking businessman John Singleton to donate race winnings to start Loaves and Fishes.

Since then attitudes to poverty have stubbornly refused to shift, he said.

"I think often it is like, `Oh no those poor homeless kids, we have to help them'. But then it is like, `Oh no they stole my handbag, they need to go to jail'."

Governments - whether Liberal or Labor - also seem incapable of turning rhetoric into change, he said.

"If you have a disability, are a single mum or are out of a job, society just makes it harder for you ... the more hoops you have to go through."

But most worrying, he said, was the rising numbers and demographic shift of people coming to his restaurant.

"It used to just be mainly old men, now there are women and lots of young people.

He said the number of "working poor" was increasing, "with people one pay packet away from disaster".

Source: AAP