Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Houser.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a home where being a good student and going to college was mandatory, not optional. That plan backfired on my parents when I went to college and told them that I was going to major in English Literature. I did tell them that once I graduated, I was going to cook in a restaurant. My father was so supportive of my passion for cooking, that he encouraged me to go to culinary school. It wasn’t until years later that my dad admitted his logic was not so much based on my passion, but more along the lines of “What the hell is he going to do with a degree in English literature?!”
I graduated from culinary school with one goal – to be an executive chef and own my own restaurant. Ten years later, in 2007, I achieved my goal. In my first year of ownership, I was nominated for Best Up & Coming Chef in Dallas AND grew the business 38%. I was exceeding my goal.
Also, within that first year, I taught eight young men inside a Dallas County juvenile detention facility how to make ice cream for a contest at the Dallas Farmers Market. The first thing I realized the moment that I met these 8 young men was that I had stereotyped them before I had met them. The way they walk, the way they talk, that thug/gangsta stereotype. The moment that I met them I knew I was wrong. All eight young men looked me in the eye when they spoke. They all called me sir. Now, over 20 years of cooking, I’ve been called a lot of names in a lot of languages in a lot of kitchens. In no language were those names ever “sir.” These young men were so enthusiastic to learn and so eager to do something they could be proud of. Lest I forget to mention that, for them, raspberry was a flavor of candy. They had never seen much less tasted a fresh raspberry, so you can imagine the look on their faces when I had them taste fresh tarragon.
We made ice cream and two days later they were brought to the farmers market to compete against college culinary students with their ice creams. At the end of the competition, one of the young men won! Beating out the college students. When he won, he came running up to me, knees bent and arms cocked and he yelled, “Sir! I just love to cook!” I bent my knees, cocked my arms and yelled back, “Sir! Me too!” He then said, “I just love to make food and give it to people and put a smile on their face.” That resonated in me so much. He then said, “When I get out, I’m going to get a job in a restaurant.” and quickly asked my professional opinion on whether he should work at Wendy’s or Chili’s. I quickly told him, “Whoever hires you first.”
I left that day knowing several things. One, I was never going to see him again. He was a juvenile under custody of the juvenile department. They were not going to release his personal information to me. I also knew, not to the extent I do now, but I knew that the odds of him making it to a Wendy’s or Chili’s were slim to none. After all, he was going to be released to the same house, same street, same neighborhood, same school same everything that had paved his path to detention. I thought, it’s not fair. Why someone not doing something? Then I told myself that if I could blame people all day long but I was a hypocrite if I wasn’t willing to do something myself. That was it. I knew I wanted to do something but had no idea what.
A year later, I was closing up the restaurant one night, talking to my business partner on the phone and complaining to her that it had been a year and I had done nothing. She pushed back on me and said, “Then what do you want to do.” I snapped back with the confidence of a man that had partaken in some bourbon, “I just want to open a restaurant and let these kids run it.” She said, “That’s cool!” And thus, the idea for Cafe Momentum was born. A non-profit restaurant that serves as a twelve-month paid, post-release internship for young men and women exiting Dallas County juvenile detention facilities. Over the course of the twelve months, the young men and women work their way through all of the stations in the restaurant – dishwasher, prep cook, line cook, busser, server and host or hostess. In addition to learning valuable life and social skills, they also learn their strengths and interests. Additionally, we have a case management team that simultaneously works to build an ecosystem of support around them. First addressing urgent issues like housing (62% of our interns are homeless. And when you’re 15/16 years old homeless usually also means abandoned.), health care (Through a partnership with Parkland, the Dallas County hospital, our interns not only have access to free health care, they also have access to an actual primary care physician.), getting them a government issued ID. Then moving on to intermediate objectives like a bank account, getting them back into school, parenting classes and financial literacy training. As their internship nears an end, we then work on getting together their resume, interview skills, and set them up for a job that focuses on their strengths and interests with one of our employment partners. Our goal is to create a solid foundation for which they can build the rest of their lives on and achieve their full potential.
I confidently began to tell people that I was opening a non-profit restaurant and needed $250,000 in seed money. First response was always, “Aren’t all restaurants non-profit.” Then I was told, “So you’re going to take kids out of jail, teach them to play with knives and fire, and you think I’m going to give you a dollar?” I would remind them that I specifically asked for $250,000, not one dollar. They would say things like, “What are you going to do when those kids stab each other in the kitchen?” “Those kids don’t want a job, they just want a check.” “Those kids have never been to a nice restaurant.” “Those kids can’t cook your food.”
In order to raise money, raise awareness and break through those stereotypes, we launched a series of monthly pop-up dinners in June of 2011. The idea behind the pop-ups was simple. Take over one of the top restaurants in Dallas on a Sunday night when they were closed, sell tickets to a private dinner, have the chef write a four course dinner, and then his or her staff to execute the food in the kitchen and serve it to the level and quality of service in that restaurant were eight young men that we would bring in from one of the Dallas County juvenile detention facilities. The goal was to somehow get 50 people to pay $50 dollars to attend. Within 24 hours of announcing, and before we could shut the PayPal down, we had sold 68 tickets. That first dinner, all 68 attendees either shook my hand or gave me a hug as they left and said, “You know, this could be my son.” The stereotype was gone.
By December of 2011, we doubled the price to $100 and the dinner sold out in 15 minutes. By spring of 2012, our dinners were selling out in 15 seconds. In the summer of 2012, I decided that I needed to walk the talk. It was one thing to tell these young men that I believed in them. It was another thing to prove that I was willing to bet my career on their potential. On September 1, 2012, I sold my restaurant ownership and become the full time executive director and executive chef of Cafe Momentum, a restaurant that didn’t exist.
The brick and mortar Cafe Momentum restaurant opened on January 29th, 2015. In March of 2015, Dallas Morning News food critic Leslie Brenner visited our restaurant to review. Now, Leslie is a controversial figure, not just in Dallas, but nationally. Her reputation is that she hates every restaurant she reviews. So, it should come as no surprise that Leslie reviewed Cafe Momentum as a restaurant. Not a charity. Not a nonprofit. A restaurant. In her review she wrote that on any given night we could go toe to toe with the top restaurants in the city. By the Fall of 2015, the Dallas Observer named us Best New Restaurant and Eater Dallas named us Restaurant of the Year. Two and a half years later, and we are still listed in various “hottest” lists. All accolades that we are proud of because it proves that our kiddos can and will rise to whatever level of expectation you set for them as long as you give them the tools, resources, love, guidance and support to get there.
But our success extends well beyond the four walls of the restaurant. From the first pop-up dinner to date, we have worked with over 500 young men and women. Of those, statistically speaking, 48% of them should have gone back to jail within 12 months. That is the state recidivism rate for juveniles in Texas. And of course, there is a cost. In Texas, the cost to put a child in detention is $127,000, with basically a 50/50 chance that you will spend another $127,000 in twelve months or less. That does not include victim costs or the cost to perpetuate a cycle. If they go back a second time, again, a 50/50 chance, all of the data and just plain common sense will tell you that it’s over and done. They will spend the rest of their lives going in and out, in and out. That cost is $1.7M – $2.3M. Of the over 500 young men and women that we have worked with, 15% have gone back to jail. That is why I proudly tell you that Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings owes me over $19.8M. In business terms, from the money we have raised to operate to the money we’ve saved taxpayers, that is a 747% return on investment.
While we are proud of this data, our mission statement clearly states that our mission is to help them achieve their full potential. That’s well beyond just keeping them out of jail. And we are. Let me tell you about Abisai. Abisai is the son of Mexican immigrants. His parents came to America and took jobs that most Mexican immigrants take, meaning they didn’t make much money. They got married, started a family and ended up getting divorced. For Abisai, that meant going from a household of poverty, to two households in higher poverty. It means he went from a bad neighborhood to a really bad neighborhood. It means that he did not want to ask his dad for things that he would say his mom should provide and he didn’t want to ask his mom for things that she would say his dad should provide. So, he turned to the streets to survive. And by survive, I mean find money for clothes, toiletries, food. I mean survive. He wound up in trouble and went through our program. Upon completing the program in April 2016, he worked for one of our employment partners, a large Dallas hotel. Within three months of working there, he was promoted from busboy to barback. At 17 years old, Abisai was making between $700 and $1,000 a week, with full health benefits, paid vacation and a 401K. In January, I had the privilege of watching Abisai walk across the stage and receive his high school diploma; the first high school graduate of his family. In August of this year, he began college where he intends to major in mechanical engineering.
What this tells us is that the conversation is no longer about Abisai. It’s about his children. His grandchildren. Their children. You see, Abisai’s children will no longer grow up in poverty. They will no longer grow up where graduating high school is optional. Where being a leader and good steward of their community is optional. That changes the entire conversation. So much so, that last fall we did a study to look at the generational impact of Cafe Momentum. What impact does working with 100 young men and women look like across five generations. Simply put, working with 100 interns a year affects over 2,500 lives across five generations. And when you look at the financial impact, adding the saving of keeping them out of jail to the actual money they pump into their community, the total is $389M.
I believe that if you look that up in the dictionary, that is the very definition of momentum.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When we opened the restaurant and began the full 12-month internship we could not have completely grasped how many challenges and struggles our interns were facing. From homelessness to fatherlessness to lack of health care to childhood trauma to returning to the exact same pressures and realities that put our young men and women into trouble in the first place. These are obstacles and challenges our young men and women face every day and we will continue to do everything we can to help them tackle and overcome them.
Please tell us about Cafe Momentum.
Café Momentum is a paid post-release internship program for young men and young women coming out of juvenile detention. Our mission is to transform young lives by equipping our community’s most at-risk youth with life skills, education, and employment opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. Interns, who are former juvenile offenders, receive intensive culinary, career, and life skills training as well as continued mentoring and support to foster a successful reentry into the community.
Nearly 7,000 youth enter the Dallas County Juvenile Justice system each year. Many are victims of abusive homes, inadequate education, unsafe neighborhoods, chronic homelessness, and generational cycles of poverty. Without a support system and a way to legally earn money upon release, the risk of recidivism—a return to the delinquent and criminal behaviors that led to adjudication—is high. The latest recidivism rate for Texas juvenile detention centers is 48%. Adjudicated youth choose Café Momentum’s paid Internship knowing that this may be their last chance to control their future. In addition to providing culinary training and legal employment, Café Momentum provides life and social skills training, advocacy, case management, and support, while emphasizing accountability and character development.
Café Momentum’s Internship is designed to increase stable employment and decrease recidivism by providing Interns with job and life skills training, mentorship, and employment in a casual fine dining restaurant. These wraparound services create an ecosystem of support that help Interns become successful adults and break generational cycles of poverty and crime. The Internship begins with an eight-week, intensive Orientation at which time Interns are connected with case managers to address basic urgent needs and access social services.
We help Interns establish a baseline of stability in their lives, set personal goals, and build trusting relationships with Café Momentum employees. They learn work-readiness competencies through structured activities, discussions, and training materials, in addition to attending group therapy sessions.
Interns participate in a 12-month paid Internship, working their way through all areas of the restaurant—bussing, serving, hosting, dishwashing, kitchen prep, and the line cooking—while working side-by-side with our established chefs and service leaders. Interns also help with catering activities, thereby learning another complete skill set. Interns learn legal employment skills, social behavioral competencies, and life skills while experiencing the positive benefit of interacting with our dining patrons.
Café Momentum continually strives to decrease recidivism and improve the outlook and quality of life for each Intern.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My love for food started when I would go to my grandparents’ house every Sunday for Sunday Supper. Me, my parents, aunt’s uncles, cousins, grandparents. You see, food means more to me than eating. It means family. Camaraderie. Love. Those suppers nurtured my belly but more importantly nurtured my soul.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1510 Pacific Avenue
Dallas, TX 75201 - Website: www.cafemomentum.org
- Phone: 214-303-1234
- Email: info@cafemomentum.org
- Instagram: @cafemomentum
- Facebook: cafemomentum
- Twitter: @cafemomentum
Image Credit:
Chad Windham Photography – @chadwindham
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