Gather55 opens its doors in Hartford for dinner. Here’s how they plan to serve up free meals for those in need.

Gather 55, the cafe at Hands on Hartford, opened in June, offering a pay-what-you-can breakfast and lunch service. The move was meant to foster a sense of community by offering restaurant-quality meals to anybody in a space that traditionally has been a soup kitchen.

On Wednesday, the offerings expand to include dinner four days a week. Each Wednesday to Saturday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., 80% of diners will pay $42 for a prix fixe three-course meal from a menu created by acclaimed chef Tyler Anderson. The remaining 20% will be fed that same meal for free.

This is intentionally a different model than pay-what-you-can, but even breakfast and lunch have been tweaked away from that model, said Molly Reynolds, the shared kitchen and cafe manager at Hands on Hartford.

Since Oct. 1, anyone who wants breakfast or lunch can come anytime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday to Thursday to Gather 55, at 55 Bartholomew Ave. The cost is either $2 or a half-hour of volunteer work: pouring coffee, waiting or bussing tables, washing dishes, sweeping up, helping with prep in the kitchen, etc.

There are exceptions to this rule, Reynolds said, which have their roots in the venue’s history as a haven for the city’s poor.

“If someone is clearly too exhausted to volunteer, if they are dealing with issues, if we know they are working on themselves, we will give them a voucher for the meal,” Reynolds said.

The pivot away from pay-what-you-can was necessary, Reynolds said, to keep the community cafe concept afloat logistically and financially.

“In August we served 7,200 meals,” she said. “What people heard was, there’s the best free food here. The buses are free now, too. I would see the bus pull up at Bartholomew and Park and 30 people would get off and all head here.”

And the percentage of people who paid anything? “Almost 0 percent,” Reynolds said.

“We want to serve the community but we only have so much capacity,” she said. “We were too popular. It was unsustainable. It was chaotic.”

From that peak of about 240 meals a day on a rotating menu, Gather 55′s daily meal load is cut by about half with this month’s implementation of the “participation model” and fixed menu. It’s working, Reynolds said.

“I like to think of it as a market correction,”' she said. “We’re starting to see the mix we’ve always wanted and it’s financially sustainable. It lets people give something to this entity.”

Dinner

Unlike breakfast and lunch, dinner service was never intended to be pay-what-you-can. “The intention with dinner is to earn enough funds to underwrite breakfast and lunch,” Reynolds said.

That $42 fixed price is meant to draw in people who love Anderson’s food from Millwright’s in Simsbury, at a relatively bargain price. Reservations can be made at gather55.com.

Tipping is not necessary. “We pay our staff well,” Reynolds said. Instead, a 20% service charge is added.

Those who want to be among the 20% of free diners must email Hands on Hartford first to introduce themselves.

“They have to say why they want to dine with us. Maybe they just lost their job and can’t afford to eat out anymore. Maybe they’re an artist and don’t make much money,” Reynolds said.

Email at gather55@handsonhartford.com.

Both groups will dine from the same menu. This week’s offerings, posted online, are, for the first course, roast squash, kale salad or pumpkin soup; for the second course, crispy half-chicken, apple-mustard-glazed salmon or roasted mushrooms; and butterscotch pudding for dessert.

Bread is from Small State Provisions of West Hartford and coffee is from Giv Coffee in Canton.

For an additional charge, diners can order foreign or domestic wine ($9 to $16 a glass or $36 to $60 a bottle) or craft beer ($6.50 to $8), from breweries including Hog River of Hartford, Relic of Plainville and Bad Sons of Derby.

To add to the restaurant vibe, someone donated a sound system to play music. For dinner the dining room is spiffed up from the more casual breakfast-lunch setup with table linens and a higher grade of tableware.

“We want dinner to be a spectrum of diners,” she said. “We don’t want finances to be a barrier.”

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com