Colorado lawmakers have proposed bipartisan legislation to expand food assistance benefits to allow recipients to use them to buy meals from restaurants.

Senate Bill 169 requires the state Department of Human Services to submit an application by January 1, 2026 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture requesting to join the federal Restaurant Meals Program.

As of June 2024, nine other states have already adopted this program.

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The program would allow eligible Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients to purchase hot or prepared foods at participating restaurants. SNAP is a federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families.

In 2024, 584,500 Colorado residents, or 10 percent of the state population, utilized SNAP.

Eligible recipients for the program would include older adults, people with disabilities and those experiencing housing instability.

The Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, a collective of organizations working together to end hunger in Colorado, is leading advocacy efforts for the bill.

“Let’s bring the Restaurant Meals Program to Colorado,” it said in a statement on the program. “By doing so, we can expand food access while boosting local businesses and driving economic growth in our communities.”

While the bill does not specify particular restaurants that will participate in the program, it lays out requirements for the state to set up an application process for restaurants to apply to the program.

Participating restaurants would be required to be licensed by the state Department of Health and authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to receive SNAP.

It also says that participating restaurants may be “encouraged” through the program’s rules to:

• Utilize practices of procuring locally produced foods for hot or prepared meals.
• Serve foods that represent diverse cultural traditions.
• Serve geographically diverse regions of the state.
• Offer the option for a patron to choose how to pay for their meal in underinvested communities.

The bill has both state Senate and House sponsorship, but has only been assigned to a Senate committee. Representative Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, and Senator Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne, have joined together from opposite sides of the political aisle to sponsor the bill in the Senate.

It is scheduled to be considered by the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources committee March 5.