In the far southern outskirts of Dallas County, Chad Houser pulled off the I-45 highway, drove onto a dead-end road leading to several shooting ranges and made a quick right turn to his final destination: the Dallas County Youth Village, a non-secure juvenile detention facility for 10-to-17-year-old boys. Stepping out of his car, Houser, a chef at the acclaimed Dallas bistro Parigi, noticed a putrid stench rising from the nearby landfill and water treatment plant. He grabbed a bundle of fruits and herbs from his car and strode into the compound, where he planned to teach a class on making ice cream.

One night in 2009, as he was closing up Parigi after dinner service, he told his business partner he felt dishonest. A year had passed, and the boys at the Youth Village weren’t any better off. He felt like he’d broken a promise. “I just want to open a restaurant and let these kids run it,” he confessed. He wanted a place where kids were could learn “more than how to cook.” He wanted them to gain life skills like personal responsibility, social skills and financial management. “I wanted them to be exposed to things they had never been exposed to,” Houser says. When his partner told him it sounded like a pretty good idea, he devoted all his energy to making the establishment a reality.
Café Momentum, which can host 150 diners nightly, opened in January 2015 with a baguette-cutting ceremony. This month, nine formerly incarcerated young men became the first to graduate from its first yearlong training program.

From the very first pop-up dinner, Houser realized that large receipts and fabulous food were well and good, but the most important aspect of dinner service would be breaking down stereotypes, in exactly the same way his conception of juvenile offenders was shattered the first time he met any. And that process, he adds, needs to happen on both sides of the table. Diners need to see that, with some support, these young men aren’t career criminals, and the workers need to see that the rest of the city wants them to succeed. In a city that has a long history of racial segregation, interaction between these two groups of people is rare outside the dining room. Yet, in the ritual of a multi-course meal, a bond is forged between the wait staff and customers and barriers come down.

To read more of the story written by Chris Peak, please click here