There’s an interesting story regarding a young man at Dallas County Youth Village, a detention center for juvenile nonviolent offenders, ages 13-17. This young man got an offer for a job at Texadelphia after an hour-long interview proved just how determined he is to take advantage of the opportunity provided him.
The young man had been at DCYV because he was a juvenile offender. The young man got the job offer pending his release because there are people at DCYV and several from elsewhere who believed he wasn’t a lost cause. The young man is sixteen years old, and has a better perspective on life than he’s ever had before.
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Chad Houser was going to be Dale Hansen. Originally from Allen, he grew up watching the Dallas sports anchor on TV and had every intention of following those footsteps when he went to college. Of course, as is the wont of the college student, a poet or a writer can change a lifetime’s dreams in a moment, and Dylan Thomas provided the works that redirected Houser to the path of Literature Major.
Still, he loved cooking. In fact, he loved it enough to tell his parents that when he graduated with his major in literature, he intended to find a kitchen and to work in it – just to pursue it and see where it took him.
And I’ll never forget my dad telling me, ‘why don’t you just go to culinary school?’ And I thought to myself ‘wow, man, what a supportive father.’ Because you know, I didn’t understand culinary school at the time; I thought it was akin to a quick trade school, I didn’t understand it was really all this stuff, so I talked to a family friend who was an executive chef and he had mentioned El Centro and said to myself, ‘okay, cool.’ Houser recalls.
So I enrolled at El Centro, and they’re always telling you to get a job, get a job. So one semester in I got a job, and I remember my first day of cooking: I measured cookie dough for eight hours – that’s all I did, I scooped. It was four and a half pounds of unbleached flour, one and a half pounds of pastry flour, sixteen eggs, two tablespoons of vanilla, four pounds of butter. And it was over and over and over again.
I walked away thinking, “this is so amazing, so awesome, this is great!” And so I started cooking.
Houser had become a cook. He was a full-time college student, a full-time employee, and a new father. And he was 21.
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Advance the clock a decade. Houser has made his way up an outfit called The Catering Company, but the job is too much for a full-time father. It’s at the point that he’s accepted the fact that though it’s the life he wants to pursue, it simply won’t work if he wants to be the sort of father he intends.
Then one day I got a phone call from a purveyor, and he asked what was I doing? And I responded, ‘nothing.’ He asked me what I wanted to do? By that time I was a single father, and had almost relegated myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to cook again – I needed to be a dad. And so he kind of told me – it was kind of knee jerk, but whatever – he told me that there’s this woman, Janice Provost: she owns Parigi, she’s looking for a chef during the day, and I think you guys would be a good fit.
And so I called Janice more as a favor to him. Remember, I’m thinking I can’t cook anymore, that I just can’t do it anymore. I started talking to her, and we’re talking, and I was thinking, ‘okay, okay – once you start cooking, it’s there.’ She’s says ‘okay, just come to talk to me the next day.’ So I went in and talked to her and it was instant (he snaps)! I fell in love with the restaurant, I fell in love with everything. She said, ‘well, come in tomorrow and just kind of stage, see if you like it, see if you can do it. That was my first time cooking on a line, a true line, ‘cause I’d done catering. I was done, this was perfect. I cook during the day, I was home at night with my daughter.
Houser would leave Parigi for a different job in a year, but he’d come back – Provost had mentioned that she wanted an operating partner to help share the burdens of running a restaurant, and he soon showed up at the door with the paperwork. Between thinking it was all done to leaving and coming back again, Chad Houser had found his dream job against what he considered some pretty long odds.
His next project would have even longer ones.
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For the sake of privacy – and when it comes to juvenile delinquents, privacy is of utmost concern – the young man’s name for the story is Mr. R. His offense is unimportant to the story other than the fact that it is the reason he has found himself working under the tutelage of Jefferey Hobbes. Mr. R, under instruction from the (now former) head chef at Suze, will help cook, plate, serve, and bus a multi-course dinner to dozens of customers who have paid in advance for what they expect to be an outstanding meal.
To no one’s surprise, the meal is indeed outstanding. Mr. R and several of his peers have done excellent work at this ‘pop-up’ restaurant, and Café Momentum proves to everyone there that the concept works.
It’s proven to people that it can work; it’s proven to people why it can work, how it can work, and why it needs to work. We take eight young men each time, we start in June, July, August, September, four dinners, we’ve used roughly 24 young men, twenty to twenty-four young men, and of all of them, three have been released with jobs, waiting. Two of them have jobs lined up when they get released. One of them, while he’s been at the Youth Village, has now gotten his GED and a $1000 scholarship.
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If you ask Houser what the mission is for Café Momentum, what exactly it is, he’ll quickly delve into the whole story – which, according to the tape, takes 46 minutes and 19 seconds to tell. He recalls going to Dallas County Youth Village and noticing the courtesy and respect shown to him by the young men there. He talks about the kindness and integrity of Jerry Silhan, the Executive Director the Youth Village Resources of Dallas, which is a non-profit group that raises funds to implement programs for the young men at the Dallas County Youth Village, and the charitable entity under which Café Momentum is a part. He talks about the desire he and Provost instantly had to help these young men, and he mentions the vegetable gardens that were growing on their first visit.
Houser’s definition of the mission statement covers all the reasons why Café Momentum is a great idea. He’ll go into recidivism rates reflecting the lack of opportunities for young men leaving the Dallas County Youth Village, he’ll comment on the pride he sees them take on their work that clearly deserves it. He’ll tell you about the garden-turned-farm that the DCYV is developing and how much of an impact it will be on these young men to see the food through, from seed to plant to kitchen to plate.
He’ll say:
I was taking some classes, trying to wrap my brain around how to do a chef mentorship program. One of the reasons why Jerry was so focused on a mentorship program was because these guys, once they get out they’re out. The juvenile justice system can have no contact with them. None. So there is no follow up. There is no … at the end of the day there is no mentoring.
So we wanted to create programs that can create mentorships where these guys still have somebody checking on them, still have somebody modeling, still have somebody looking out for them. It’s very, very vital, and it makes very common sense as to why that would be vital. But then you start looking at a financial aspect of it, which is stuff I learned on down the road. Which is stuff like recidivism rates, and the recidivism rate for juvenile offenders in the state of Texas is fifty percent. Yeah. Fifty.
Then you get the annual taxpayer cost on putting someone back in jail, at 16 years old, which is over $100,000. So at 50 percent, you start thinking the Dallas County Youth Village cycles 160 young men cycle through the Dallas County Youth Village annually, so you are talking 8 million dollars a year that’s being paid to put them back in jail.
Now with the Youth Village, because of numerous factors – one of which would obviously be the programs that are being put in place by Youth Villages Resource of Dallas – has a recidivism rate at 20%. Right. So they have already created a five million dollar taxpayer savings by minimal investment programs. But every one of these programs, again, does nothing for these young men once they get out.
So I talked to Janice one night and said “look, I can’t figure out this chef mentorship program.” She’s responded, “well, what’s going on?” And I started telling her all my concerns, and then “I can only think of one thing to do, there is just one thing I can think to do, and that’s for us to open up a restaurant and let these guys run it.” Janice just says, “Oh my God, I love it.” And so literally within two hours, from midnight to 2 a.m., the entire core idea of Café Momentum was born. And that was, instead of taking the young men, and putting them with a chef, we’re going to bring a chef and put them with the young men. We can supervise it, we can monitor it, we can control it, we can set these young men – it’s all about setting them up for success, instead of setting them up for failure because that’s what they have been set up for all their life.
So the idea was born, very simple. They’re allowed to work there for 12 months, we treat it like an internship, they bus tables, they wait tables, they wash dishes, they make salads, they grill steaks, every aspect of a restaurant. Each month we bring in a different chef. That chef writes a couple of menu items – we’re not going to do a whole new menu every month, because it needs to be consistent and stable – but each month the chef writes a couple of menu items, and works with, we’re asking for a week of cumulatively working with young men, teaching them not just how to prepare it, not just how to plate it, how to serve it, how to and so forth, and so when these guys walk away, they’re walking away with some momentum, no pun intended.
“We are going to pay the staff a generous living wage because minimum wage is a joke. Nobody can live on minimum wage and expect to get ahead in life. The living wage for a single individual in Dallas County is $8.88 an hour, for two adults it is $13.50. We are budgeting to pay the staff $10.00 an hour, which is a unique opportunity. So when they walk away after 12 months, they have financial stability, a year’s worth of work experience, and a list of 12 chefs they can use as job references, job contacts, job anything.”
So we were were thinking ‘yes, yes, yes, let’s do it, let’s do it.’ I said to Janice to let me tell Jerry I want to sit down and talk to him, tell him that this is what we want to do and so on and we’ll see what he says. So I sat down with Jerry one afternoon right about two years ago, and I said “Jerry, I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, and I know it’s a pipe dream, but … I want us to open up a restaurant and have these guys run it.” And Jerry looked at me and without blinking, without batting an eye, without doing anything said, “okay.” And I thought, “damn, this guy is just as crazy as me!”
Provost came up with the name. The restaurant would help propel these young men back into society on their own positive momentum.
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Tonight Abraham Salum, of Salum and Komali Mexican Restaurant, is heading up the kitchen at Café Momentum. It’s at the Communities Fountation of Texas this evening, and Mr. R is well into his job at Texadelphia. But there are more young men to take his place.
Salum’s menu for the evening isn’t simple: Mini Shrimp Tostadas with Aguachile, Beef Tinga Sopes, Wild Mushroom Flautas with Avocado Salsa Verde – and those are just the hors d’oeuvres. But every course is brilliant. As is the service. Everything from the Roasted Red Snapper to the Seared Pork Tenderloin with Chicharron Crust, Pasilla Mole and Cilantro Rice is done with precision.
These young men have performed their tasks with professionalism and pride that would make the sternest chef smile.
And then they clean up. Café Momentum is closed for the evening – in fact, it is closed for the month. The wheels are turning and the idea is gaining traction, but the dream isn’t quite realized. Not yet. Even charitable dreams cost money, and this is no exception.
Our goal is to keep raising money and we’re trying to figure out ways to raise more money because the pop up dinners are not going to open up the restaurant alone, it would take two and a half years based on the rate we’re at, with the pop up dinners, to open up a permanent location.
And so we are slowly thinking of ways to ask people for money. And if you think about it, with a donation, you’re going to save – well it’s not even saving, it’s exponential amounts of money that will be not saved but pumped back into the community. Say you’re taking one young man and you’re keeping him out, you already saved $100,000. But now you’re putting money in his pocket. By putting money in his pocket you’re doing things like allowing him to take care of himself. One of the guys that will be serving is a father. So by giving him job stability you’re giving him the ability to help pay for this child, to help take care of this child, to be a father to this child, and you’re breaking a cycle. So, with a one-time $250,000 investment, there would be millions of dollars in return. Millions.
And there would be hundreds of cycles broken and lives changed. All Houser has to do is keep the momentum going.
For more information, including how to donate, go to www.cafemomentum.org
