It’s Week 1 of fall quarter, and Del Playa Drive is packed. Moving down the street, the smell of grilled meat fills the air as groups approach a house illuminated with string lights and a long line of intoxicated and hungry partygoers.
Since they started their mission in 2001, Jesus Burgers has given away an estimated 200,000 burgers in I.V. Eric Johnson / Daily Nexus
Since 2001, every Friday night at 6686 Del Playa Drive, Jesus Burgers has given out free burgers to anyone willing to wait from 10 p.m. to midnight. The co-ed house of seven men and seven women aged 18-23 includes a variety of different backgrounds, including students from UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont College and non-students.
Jesus Burgers is a ministry of Isla Vista Mission, which serves as an “umbrella” for different Christian groups, including Isla Vista Worship, Isla Vista House of Prayer, Run with Christ Isla Vista and others. They estimate that they give out over 200 burgers each night, which includes a signature ketchup heart and mustard cross. When asked why they’re giving out the burgers for free, they always answer, “Because Jesus loves you.”
Jason Lomelino created the initiative and is now the lead pastor of Isla Vista Church. Lomelino explained that they started by giving out free burgers once a month at Anisq’Oyo Park, which led to them going onto Del Playa every Friday, walking the street and asking people what they thought of Jesus and Christianity. After deciding they needed a “home base,” they started renting their current house in 2002 and began distributing hamburgers on Friday nights.
“People on the streets called us ‘Jesus people cooking Jesus burgers,’ so they coined this term, we didn’t,” Lomelino said. “Since 2002, we’ve been cooking up 250 hamburgers or so every Friday night during the school year. So now we’re probably over 200,000 hamburgers.”
According to Lomelino, only three people currently living at the house continued their lease from last year. As far as selecting the new 11 people to fill the vacant beds, Lomelino and other pastors at Isla Vista Church take applicants through an interview process and collect references. However, most applicants are already a part of the church, making it a “quite easy” process.
At 9:45 p.m., just before they start giving out burgers, volunteers are assigned to man a “free blessings” sign across the street from the Jesus Burgers house, where blessings are given to anybody who asks.
Before selecting their volunteers, Ivan Perez, a resident of the Jesus Burgers house and a divinity studies graduate student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, gave a pep talk to the new faces on what to say when giving out a free blessing.
“The gospel is different than religion. Religion tells you good advice, what you must do to get to God. The gospel is what God has done to get down to us, and that is what we need to emphasize tonight,” Perez said.
Another resident of the house, fourth-year business major at Grand Canyon University Tommy Stratton, ended by saying, “Not every conversation has to be a gospel blast.”
“I know everyone here has a testimony of how God encountered you, so just share a little bit about that. And I’m telling you, God will flow,” he said.
Rachel Bowman, a member of the “Shepherd Team” at Isla Vista Church, dispatched the volunteers, clarifying that they can only have up to 10 people at each sign. She advised the volunteers to “ask God to highlight some people” for them to approach and that “the Holy Spirit will put the words in your mouth.”
At 8 p.m., Jesus Burgers begins its night by starting with Isla Vista Worship, a music collective that formed 10 years ago and performs Christian music and worship. The crowd was mellow; at the beginning of the night, most attendees were composedly swaying, and those sitting stuck their hands out with their eyes closed, quietly singing along with the lyrics, which consisted of about “30 to 40 percent” original material, with the rest being covers, according to the singer Dani Schick.
In reference to the importance of music when it comes to Christian worship, Schick said it’s a way for people to “interact with God in a more unfiltered way.”
One of the volunteers giving out free blessings, a third-year engineering major at Westmont College, Lukas Goodworth, said that I.V. is an environment that’s “really far away from Jesus” and that people have the mentality that they should be ashamed of something. He specified he doesn’t intend to be judgmental of other people, but rather to show people love.
“We’re on here at Del Playa, the biggest party street in UCSB, to be here with everyone to gain attention and traction and to show that we’re here with everyone,” Goodworth said. “We’re here to make conversations as well, build connections. Show that even though we may have different views of life, maybe even different lifestyles, we’re still here part of this community, and we have something to say about the love of Jesus.”
According to Lomelino, roughly a decade ago, someone from Isla Vista Church put out a sign that read, “free spiritual readings,” which gained traction throughout I.V. and eventually led to them holding up three signs each Friday. Lomelino said that he’s seen people “receive words from God that spoke right through their circumstance and situation.”
Lomelino explained that he didn’t grow up in a Christian household; rather, an “alcoholic home with a lot of chaos and craziness” in San Diego. He started drinking when he was 12 and moved to I.V. to attend SBCC, where he would party at night with his friends. His sister had just recently graduated from Westmont College, a private Christian liberal arts college just 3o minutes away from UCSB in Montecito, and inspired him to start attending worship.
With only 25.5% of UCSB students affiliated with Christianity, Lomelino specified they’re “not trying to get you onto some agenda or some belief system.”
Regarding the I.V. party scene, Lomelino clarified that God is “pro party.” However, he believes the joy of Christianity is a “hole that can never be filled by alcohol, women or other things.”
Mason Brody, a resident of the Jesus Burgers house, said he was an addict before he became a devout Christian. He said the only thing that prevented him from relapsing into his addiction was reading the Bible and worshipping Jesus.
“I’ve tasted both ends of the world, and I feel like it’s been so much happier, so much more complete with Jesus, rather than when I was hooking up every weekend with people,” Brody said.
Stratton, who just moved into the Jesus Burgers house two months ago, said “not everyone is in the same headspace” in I.V. During his interview with the Nexus, a group of four seemingly intoxicated young men walked by demanding a free blessing in a mocking manner, to which Stratton promptly provided from another member of the house. In regard to how Jesus Burgers handles people making fun of them, Stratton said “they do [blessings] besides it.”
“I’ve had so many times where people have come up to me like, ‘Hey, bro, give me a blessing, bro.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, man, sure,’ like in a joking way, and then God hits them, bro. And then, for some reason, the guy that was laughing is now crying,” Stratton said.
Emily Bush, another resident of Jesus Burgers and a third-year communication student at Westmont College, said it’s frequent for the women of the house to get hit on while giving out free blessings.
“It makes [the women in the house] uncomfortable, right? We have it where in those scenarios, we’ll have the guys step up and be like, ‘Hey, man, like you want a free blessing, if not we hope you have a good night.’ But we want to, we do this in a loving way, and we try our best to navigate each scenario, but it’s case [by] case,” Stratton said.
Stratton said a common misconception regarding Jesus Burgers is that they are a cult. He noted the similarities the house may have with a cult, but he specified that anyone who wants to participate “can leave at any time.”
“If I wasn’t a Christian, if I didn’t know about Jesus, if I had no remote understanding about what this is about, I’d be like, okay, a bunch of guys raising their hands in the back of a room, kind of weird, kind of culty,” Stratton said. “It can be very interesting, but all this just comes with experience, and also it comes with being curious.”
Lomelino concluded by emphasizing that he cares for I.V. and its residents.
“We are always praying for this city, for its safety, for its health, for the mental health,” Lomelino said. “That’s why this place is available on Friday nights for the bathroom. We got our Home Depot buckets, we got NARCAN, we got water, veggie burgers. I mean, we’re just gonna try to do everything we can to love Isla Vista on this night.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 4 of the Oct. 9, 2025 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
