Photo Courtesy Kinship Café
Kinship Café
Since opening in November, Kinship Café (2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) has become a proven health-focused avenue in the Halyard Park, Harambee and Brewers Hill neighborhoods.
Located in the ThriveOn King building, the café is the latest initiative of the Kinship Community Food Center. ThriveOn King is the brainchild of the ThriveOn Collaboration led by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Royal Capital. The Collaboration formed with a goal of investing in the health, education and socioeconomic wellness of Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
“This is the first time Kinship has done anything like this,” says Amanda Fahrendorf, senior communications associate for Kinship Community Food Center. The organization, which had piloted their Workforce employment readiness program two years ago, considered ways to further meet the needs of community members while creating space for increased stability.
Kinship’s Workforce participants begin their classes preparing food at Kinship Community Food Center, located in the basement of St. Casimir church on East Clarke Street. “When Kinship received this opportunity (from the ThriveOn Collaboration), it fit well. The Café is the public-facing portion of this program,” says Fahrendorf.
Caitlin Cullen, chef and owner of the former Tandem restaurant, is the food operations director for Kinship Community Food Center. She oversees all food processing activities and is helping launch the café with menu development, and training staff and managers.
While running Kinship’s food center is Cullen’s main role, she emphasizes the connective tissue between the café and the food center. “People that only get to visit us in (at the food center) in a little church basement now have a bigger, cooler place to interact with us.” She praised Kinship Café manager Shania Hutchins, who worked with Cullen at Tandem, and café associate Nikki Danielson, as “exceedingly qualified to lead the charge.” Hutchins and Danielson had both gone through programs akin to Workforce and can thus share their experiences and lead others.
Cullen adds that consistently producing good quality food day in and day out can be challenging for some people without much kitchen experience, but her team works together to pull it off. They do have a couple of ringers that had worked in restaurant kitchens. “I’m sometimes surprised by the reception. We’re very busy! That’s a great problem to have.”
Kinship Café employee Evan Vana, age 26, had once been in a dark place; drug addiction had taken away his job, his apartment, his car and “basically my whole life,” he reflects. Through Fourth Dimension, a sobriety house where participants are required to volunteer two days per week, he connected with Kinship Community Food Center.
Positive Energy
At first, he didn’t take it seriously, but the positive energy eventually drew him in. “I found myself helping more, and I didn’t want to half-ass my sobriety. I wanted to go fully into whatever I was doing.” His efforts were eventually recognized by Vincent Noth, executive director of Kinship, who enrolled Vana in the Workforce program.
As a teen, Vana had worked at the former Athens restaurant on Silver Spring and Lover’s Lane Road, at Butler Inn, and at Panda Express and Culver’s. He wears many hats at Kinship Café, from line cook and barista duties, to dishes, to operating the register.
The focus of the Workforce program is helping participants put their lives back together. Participants commit 29 hours per week to the program, of which 16 hours are spent working at the café. The remaining time is spent receiving human development coaching to work through past traumas. Coaching is offered through a healing lens, so clients have stability when making future decisions.
Employees receive a stipend through the Workforce program to work at the café. Kinship also matches participants’ savings, which helps them with housing, transportation and bills.
“I feel like I’m getting everything back that I lost. I’m returning to my old self again,” Vana says. The positive encouragement and family ambiance at the café helps Vana feel appreciated. “Most of our café customers know Kinship and bring positive energy to us.”
Healthful Options
Photo Courtesy Kinship Café
Buffalo chicken sandwich
Kinship Café is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday; lunch service begins at 11 a.m. The counter-service café features scratch-made breakfast and lunch options with healthy ingredients such as sweet potatoes, beans, chicken, fish and produce. There are four specialty salads and bowls, along with build-your-own options. The Farmer’s Favorite breakfast sandwich features house-made pork sausage. Those that miss Tandem’s popular fried chicken breast sandwich will find it replicated in That Tandem Sandwich, a popular item at Kinship Café.
There is a scratch-made soup of the day, and sides include regular or sweet potato fries. A grab-and-go case offers muffins and fruit and yogurt parfaits. Drinks include drip coffee and coffee drinks, tea and lemonade.
Cullen says Kinship Café’s concept was designed to add more options to the neighborhood without stepping on existing restaurant’s toes. “We want to attract more people to the area and not be a point of competition but rather assistance to everyone.”
With likeminded missions of building equitable, vibrant and healthy communities, the partnership between Kinship and ThriveOn King came naturally. Customers include neighborhood residents, employees of ThriveOn King office tenants, and other partners that come in for lunch or breakfast.
Local businesses and nonprofits hold meetings in the spacious, open café area. Milwaukee’s Black historical figures are depicted on murals on the main walls. Modern art and lighting, along with architectural hallmarks such as original display windows from the building’s past as a Gimbels-Schuster’s department store, combine modern warmth with history.
“Kinship’s name rings a bell with so many people in the community,” says Fahrendorf. “From community shoppers, occasional volunteers to donors, they want to support this and know it’s a larger extension of the community we built.”
For more information, visit kinshipmke.org/café.
