The restaurants offered free meals last Sunday, and will serve them again next Sunday if the shutdown continues.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Some Arkansas eateries are working to make sure employees who are furloughed or working without pay have warm meals.

Restaurant owners of Tazikis Mediterranean Café and Hawgz Blues Café said they just want to make life a little bit easier for workers faced with uncertainty during the government shutdown.

“Sometimes maybe just someone helping out in a little way can go a long way,” Hawgz Blues Café CEO Kristian Nelson said.

On Sunday, the cafe served up hot meals for federal employees who aren’t getting paid during the government shutdown.

“Remember that there are some families out there that are needing a little help,” Nelson said.

If the shutdown continues, they will serve another free meal on Sunday, Jan. 20, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. to anyone who needs it.

“I’m in it because I like to serve people I want to give back. And this is the way that I can give back,” Nelson said.

The owner said he often uses his restaurant to give back to the community and felt in his heart to help people affected by the shutdown.

“I just thought about it and I said well what about those people who aren’t getting paychecks and those families and all that. It’s like, they go to work and work hard every day. Just because you have a good job doesn’t mean you don’t need your paycheck,” Nelson said.

Staff at Tazikis Mediterranean Café share his concerns. Their catering director asked if there was a way they could help families impacted.

“She had the idea of doing what we could in the community to help,” JTJ Restaurants C.O.O Jake Keet said.

So, they are offering a 25 percent discount to federal employees and immediate family who are furloughed or working without pay at all their Tazikis locations in Arkansas.

“They’re sort of caught up in the middle of a political ordeal that they have no control over and that’s why it’s more important for people to sort of stand and try to help them during that time,” Keet said.