Texas Representative Brandon Gill introduced legislation Thursday that would eliminate a federal provision allowing food stamp recipients to purchase meals at restaurants, arguing the benefit should be reserved strictly for grocery purchases.
The bill targets the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s Restaurant Meals Program, a decades-old provision that lets certain beneficiaries buy hot, ready-to-eat meals at approved eateries in a handful of states.
Gill said the program has drifted far from its original purpose. “SNAP is supposed to help struggling Americans put nutritious food on the table, not stick taxpayers with the bill for fast food,” he said in a statement. “More than half a billion dollars in SNAP benefits have gone to restaurants through this loophole in just two years while the Trump administration is working to get junk food out of the program.”
The figures behind that claim have circulated for weeks.
Roughly $524 million was spent at restaurants across nine states with active Restaurant Meals Programs between June 2023 and May 2025. California accounted for the largest share, at $475 million, followed by Arizona at $41.4 million and New York at $3.6 million. The remaining participating states included Michigan, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia, and Maryland.
Under Gill’s bill, known as the Ending Restaurant Purchases with SNAP Act, public and nonprofit organizations would still be permitted to provide meals to beneficiaries, including disabled and elderly recipients eligible for home-delivered food.
The Restaurant Meals Program traces back to the Food and Agriculture Act of 1977, originally intended for people who lacked the ability to cook or store food, including elderly, disabled, and homeless individuals.
This is not Gill’s first clash over how SNAP dollars are spent. In June, he questioned Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP Policy and Advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center, about the use of benefits to purchase soft drinks. “Do the American people need Coca-Cola to survive?” he asked her. When she did not answer directly, he added, “I think most people can rationally say that you don’t need Coca-Cola to survive.”
The following month, Gill joined a group of lawmakers led by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa in sending a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture requesting a review of Restaurant Meals Program rules. One passage in that letter read, “What was originally intended as a narrow accommodation for individuals unable to store or prepare food, the program has grown and is now dominated by large national fast-food and quick-service chains.”
The bill now heads to committee, where its future will depend on how lawmakers weigh restaurant-industry participation against broader efforts to reshape federal food assistance programs in the months ahead.
