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When he was a young employee, Maximiliano Torres didn’t like to take breaks. Then he got some advice from the former postal manager for San Francisco International Airport.
“He said, ‘Listen, the program will continue with you or without you. You are not indispensable,’” Torres said.
Now Torres is ready to put that advice to the test. After 36 years as the operations manager at St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room, which serves free meals to those in need, Torres plans to retire in October.
Joe Krauss, the chairman of the dining room’s advisory board, called Torres a dedicated leader.
“(He) shows compassion to not only the staff, but the volunteers and, of course, the diners,” said Krauss, who has been volunteering with St. Anthony’s for 15 years and became the chairman two years ago. “His enthusiasm and dedication over the decades has been an inspiration for the community.”
The Dining Room, which prepares 500 meals a day and is open to everyone, no questions asked, was established by the late Dominic Pereira behind St. Anthony’s Church in Menlo Park in 1974. The free lunch service runs six days a week from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m and distributes clothes twice a month.
Torres said Pereira came to his hometown in Baja Mexico in late 1981 looking for someone to drive a truck. Torres arrived in San Francisco on Sept. 29, 1982, and got right to work.
“When I came, I had no idea what (the dining room) was about,” he said. “All I knew was that he wanted me to drive.”
Torres began in the kitchen as a dishwasher while he worked to acquire a driver’s license. Almost three months later, he was driving across the Bay Area picking up groceries. After Pereira left in 1986, Torres was promoted to assista
nt manager, and became operations manager four years later.
It’s a job with a broad range of responsibilities. On a recent Monday, Torres arrived at 7:40 a.m to open the doors and fire up kitchen equipment like steamers, food warmers and coffee machines. Walking through the kitchen later that morning, he pointed to two industrial-sized steamer cases with deep baskets filled with broccoli and eggs.
Volunteers and employees prepare to distribute produce at a lunch service at St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room in Menlo Park on Sept. 3, 2026. Photo by Seeger Gray. 
Employee Isabel Rodriguez prepares meatloaf for a lunch service at St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room in Menlo Park on Sept. 3, 2026. Photo by Seeger Gray.
“Steaming vegetables means that all the nutrients, or most of the nutrients, are still in the vegetable when you serve them to the public,” Torres said.
After assembling the staff members, most of whom come around 8 a.m. to clean, organize and bring out items for the volunteers who help prepare and serve the food, Torres leaves the church around 9:45 a.m. to buy the days’ groceries.
At Costco, Torres picked up a bulk order of meat and a selection of prepared food. Inside the truck’s cooled trunk were boxes of pizza and foot-long aluminum foil containers of chicken alfredo, along with fresh ingredients like apples.
In one of the Padua Dining Room’s many walk-in freezers, a rolling cart is piled high with frozen sausages and packs of bacon. On a long shelf attached to the far wall sit tightly rolled tubes of ground beef. Menus are planned weekly. Torres said that the kitchen is constantly working in parallel — while they cook one meal, the meat for the next one is thawing. The dining room does not release its menus ahead of time, which allows them to be flexible, he said.
Throughout his career, Torres put his duties in the dining room above all else, even staying late on holidays before returning home to be with his family.
St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room manager Max Torres stands with his wife Maria De Jesus Torres in front of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Menlo Park on Sept. 3, 2026. Photo by Seeger Gray. 
Dining room manager Max Torres uses a forklift to move wooden pallets behind St. Anthony’s Padua Dining Room in Menlo Park on Sept. 3, 2026. Photo by Seeger Gray.
“When you need to fulfill your duties, you have a sense of commitment, that you have to see to it that things are done properly,” he said. Leaving before the job was done never crossed his mind, he added.
Longtime volunteer Richard Cortopassi credited Torres with a significant increase in the number of diners the dining room serves per day. Cortopassi said Torres was instrumental in supporting the dining room through difficult times. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Torres created a plastic doorway at the main entrance to pass out food to people safely.
“(He was) very conscious of people needing food … he did many things to accomplish that,” Cortopassi said, adding that Torres has “a big heart for people.”
When asked about his favorite part of working at the dining room, Torres quickly replied: “The giving.”
“Not too many people have that position,” he said. “Not too many people can say, ‘I’ll give this to whomever is in need.’”
Assistant Manager Arturo Jiménez, who has worked with Torres for over 25 years, will take over as operations manager. Torres expressed confidence in Jiménez’s ability to fill the role.
“The person that is learning, the new student, has to put his heart and mind into it,” Torres said. “And if he does, you have a winning person, you have somebody that is more than capable of handling any situation or any kind of problem that arises. So, when I recommended (Jiménez) for taking my position, I did it gladly.”
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