A New Jersey community kitchen has seen record-breaking crowds with many more people to feed ahead of the lapse in funding for SNAP benefits.

Cathedral Kitchen in Camden, New Jersey, regularly sees a spike in visits toward the end of the month, as people who collect benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  — SNAP — may run out or run low as they wait for their EBT cards to be refilled. 

Due to the government shutdown, which is on its 29th day, people who collect SNAP have been notified that the food aid service will not be funded on Nov. 1. The announcement spurred a lawsuit from 25 states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and calls for President Trump's administration to tap into contingency funds to keep SNAP dollars flowing into November.

Lines are only getting longer as patrons learn their benefits will be delayed until the shutdown ends.

An average day at Cathedral Kitchen will feature about 475 meals served. On a typical end-of-month day, Cathedral Kitchen might serve 640 meals, staffers said.

But on Monday, Cathedral Kitchen broke its all-time record for most meals served, serving 800. The following day, 700 meals were served, still a heavy volume.

Chef Naimah Rutling said she knew Monday would be a busy day as soon as the doors opened in the morning. Normally, about 50 people come in at that time, but she could see that the crowd was larger, about 75-100 people.

"We got ourselves together and we were equipped to handle 800 people," Rutling said.

Carrie Kitchen-Santiago, Cathedral Kitchen's executive director, is bracing for crowds to get even larger than 800, considering it's not even Nov. 1 yet.

"We're really preparing for somewhere in the thousands, we don't know how high, and there comes a point where we won't be able to prepare enough meals," Kitchen-Santiago said. "But we have a little ways to go. The biggest thing I think is just the cost, the staff cost, the food cost, we give out hygiene items, so those costs, just keeping up with that."

Pantries and food banks in the Garden State told CBS News Philadelphia on Tuesday they are in uncharted territory.

800,000 New Jersey residents benefit from SNAP, AG says

One of the dozens of attorneys general who signed onto the lawsuit against the Trump administration over SNAP, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin joined CBS News Philadelphia on Wednesday to share more about why the suit was filed.

"SNAP funds food for some of the most vulnerable Americans, 40 million Americans. In New Jersey, it's over 800,000 people, including about 340,000-350,000 children. There is no more critical program than SNAP," Platkin told anchors Jim Donovan and Janelle Burrell.

"The administration is telling states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania that they're not going to fund food services for the lowest-income and most vulnerable Americans. I never thought we'd get here as a country," Platkin said. "This lawsuit is basically just saying, 'use the billions of dollars that have been put in place specifically for this purpose to make sure children, seniors and other vulnerable people don't starve.'"

"This administration has consistently violated the law in ways that hurt people, and in this case, they're refusing to pay funds they have because they want to use vulnerable seniors and children as political pawns," Platkin said.

The suit was filed Tuesday in a federal court in Massachusetts.