Restaurant
Point of Peace
The world's first restaurant entirely managed by people in prison. A table where victims and people serving sentences sat together to eat.
We call it a RESTAURANTive act: a table can do what no cell can.
July 9, 2022 — September 4, 2023
One of a kind in the world
In the world
Restaurant with 100% in-house management
In operation
July 9, 2022 — September 4, 2023
Diners
On duty shift
Digital payment
QR and transfer, no cash
The idea, briefly
A real restaurant. Inside a prison.
His first day of service was on July 9, 2022, during the Guarantees of Independence event, where locro was served to judges from different parts of the country. Two months later, on September 3, it officially opened as a restaurant in Penal Unit No. 15 of Batán: with tables, waiters, a varied menu, and QR payment. The distinctive feature: the entire team was serving sentences and was part of the management team. The project was a joint creation of Liberté and the association Victims for Peace, conceived as a concrete device of restorative justice.
It operated for a whole year. It served pizzas, locro on July 9th for judges from all over the country, hosted weddings between inmates, welcomed crime victims from different regions. The distinction between who was a visitor and who was detained blurred in the human aspect.
"The time that passed between when the waiter came, I waited for the dish, and I ate, I felt free."
— Diner in a prison situation
Quick facts
The concept
RESTAURANTivo
The verb restore is conjugated in two senses at the same time: as a space that nourishes and as an act that repairs. That is Punto de Paz.
An restaurant where food is served. A restorative act where dignity, connection, and repair are served. Restorative justice made into a menu: victims and people in prison sitting together at the same table, with cutlery and napkins, talking about anything but what separates them.
Meeting
Victims and offenders at the same table, without symbolic barriers.
Timeshare
Lunchtime as a space for unstructured dialogue.
Repair
Rebuild broken bonds through work and care.
The alliance
Liberté + Victims for Peace
Punto de Paz was not made alone. It was made together with Victims for Peace, the association founded by judge Mario Juliano and currently coordinated by Dr. Diana Márquez.
Liberté
Provides the physical space, connectivity, intramural management, the people serving sentences who make up the team, and the daily operational coordination.
Victims for Peace
Association founded by Judge Mario Juliano. It contributed the victims' perspective, the complete furniture for the room — donated by its president — and the culinary expertise that structured the operation.
General coordination: Dra. Diana Márquez
The opening of Punto de Paz is disruptive and countercultural. It carries the idea of the enjoyment we experience when we go out to eat. It is a huge step to think that people deprived of their liberty should not only work or study.
— Dr. Diana Márquez · Victims for Peace
July 9, 2022 — September 4, 2023
Fourteen months of a successful restorative project
It operated as a restaurant from July 9, 2022 to September 4, 2023: fourteen months of a successful restorative project that proved, every day, that the formula was possible. Today the space remains active as a community dining room.
For all that has been sown in these 14 months, and following Liberté's line of work —reducing recidivism, contributing to citizen security from within— today work is underway for its relaunch.
Gallery
Those months
"The dream is to make it possible for people deprived of their freedom to enjoy a meal with their families. Just like an outside restaurant, because that’s what it is."
Do you want to know the full story?
The opening with victims and diners mixed together, the July 9th locros, the weddings in the hall, the menu, the team, the internal supply chain, the closure, and the protest on the move — all in a single reading.