Description
Presented by Roads & Kingdoms, The Anti-ICE Supper Club is a series of fundraising dinners in support of local organizations defending communities under attack—our small but vital contribution to the fight for immigrant America.
For twenty-one years, chef and owner Ted Habiger has built Room 39 around relationships with the people who grow its food. For our last Anti-ICE Supper Club gathering in Kansas City, Ted will turn those relationships into a five-course tasting menu with wine pairings, using what farmers are harvesting that week. Vegetables will come from Kansas City urban farmers, including immigrant and refugee growers working with Cultivate KC who grow foods from their home countries, and from Little Art Farm, artist Samantha Krukowski‘s small urban farm. Local farmers and producers will provide the rest, and Ted will share the stories behind the food throughout the evening. “Room 39 has always used hospitality to say something about the world we want to live in,” says Ted Habiger. “The Anti-ICE Supper Club gives us a way to turn hospitality into action. That is our act of resistance.”
When: Wednesday, October 14, 2026 6:30-9:30 pm
Where: Room 39, 1719 W. 39th Street, Kansas City, Missouri
Tickets: $175 per person, five-course tasting menu with wine pairings.
Net proceeds benefit: Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR), a local organization led by immigrants and children of immigrants that organizes and activates immigrants in Kansas and Missouri to advocate for their rights and well-being. If you cannot attend, but would like to support, please donate here.
“Right now, here in Missouri, when people in our communities are being abducted, and immigrant families have reason to fear coming to work in our kitchens, this carries political weight.”
— Ted Habiger, Room 39
Room 39 is a farm-driven neighborhood restaurant that has served breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Kansas City’s 39th Street for 21 years. The ingredients come first. Ted’s cooking begins with what his farmers are growing. Some of those relationships stretch back more than 30 years. The dining room is casual, and the kitchen is generous. Cooks are given room to develop their own instincts, and many who came through Room 39 now lead kitchens and restaurants of their own. Andrew Folger, Ted’s first employee, is now a co-owner. Hospitality at Room 39 is about making people feel welcome and cared for. You see it in the food and service, the art chosen for the walls, the restaurant’s philanthropy and civic engagement, and its long relationship with Kansas City. At its heart, Room 39 has always been about good food and good wine with good friends.
Ted Habiger is a three-time James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Midwest semifinalist and the chef and owner of Room 39. Before opening Room 39, he led Café Allegro and worked as sous chef at Danny Meyer’s Union Square Cafe in New York. Today, Habiger is also chef and owner of Oil on Linen at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and operates Food Truck Central, a Kansas City commissary kitchen supporting local food trucks and entrepreneurs. Room 39 is also a food vendor for the Kansas City Current at CPKC Stadium.
Charly Wilder is the executive editor of the award-winning travel and media company Roads & Kingdoms, the publishing partner of Anthony Bourdain from 2013 until his death. In recent years, R&K launched the League of Travelers, offering small-group culinary journeys, and R&K Insiders, a membership program that includes a new print magazine and digital editorial. The Anti-ICE Supper Club is the successor to the Banned Countries Dinners they launched in 2017 with Anthony Bourdain and chefs from the Somali, Persian, and Syrian diasporas. Before joining Roads & Kingdoms, Charly was a longtime contributor to The New York Times, reporting on travel and culture from Russia, Mexico, Central Asia, and across Europe.
Tickets are non-refundable but can be transferred. If you have any questions about these events or would like to transfer tickets, please contact tatiana@roadsandkingdoms.com.