, or young people who have been involved with the juvenile justice or child welfare systems. Since its first pop-up dinners in 2011, the organization has seen its interns beat the odds that are thoroughly stacked against them.
To this end, Houser spent almost all of 2019 traveling to introduce the country to the Cafe Momentum model. After teaming up with the National Football League, the organization hosted dinners in Nashville ahead of the 2019 NFL Draft, working with systems-involved youth there to showcase how much of a difference the organization can make in just a few days of work with young people. “We had the opportunity to showcase the public-facing component of our model,” Houser says.
To bring its unique approach to both operating a restaurant and juvenile justice reform nationwide, Cafe Momentum has teamed up with the Stand Together Foundation. Established by Charles Koch in 2003, the organization functions as a funding and expertise network for nonprofits like Cafe Momentum, which focus on what executive director Evan Feinberg calls a “bottom-up” approach to center the autonomy of those who are experiencing poverty, homelessness, or incarceration.
The young people that Cafe Momentum employs are, often, forgotten and failed by the institutions that are intended to serve them. They’re children who have been incarcerated, experienced extreme poverty, and are likely behind several years in school. It’s not clear exactly what these new Cafe Momentum restaurants will look like. Maybe they’ll have slightly different names, or serve a cuisine that is a better fit for their city than what works in Dallas. But what will remain the same is Cafe Momentum’s commitment to proving that these young people are just as capable of turning out high-quality food and exceptional service as any other worker in the restaurant industry.
This sounds very similar to EdwinsCLE in Cleveland. Good concept all around.