hello I hope you can tell by the jacket
that I am a chef by trade not an
attorney I’ve been cooking for about 20
years and in 2007 reached the peak of my
career which was to own my own
restaurant I bought into a restaurant in
downtown or uptown area of Dallas and
was the executive chef and co-owner of
this restaurant the same year the
economy in our country tanked into the
second worst recession that the country
has ever seen and I thought to myself
what have I done
I sold a house took out the equity took
out a loan to pay off the rest of the
debt to buy into this restaurant and
then thought I’ve made the greatest
mistake of my life that first year of
owning the restaurant I grew the
business 38% was nominated for Best Chef
in Dallas and life couldn’t have been
better in that first year I also had an
opportunity to teach eight young men and
one of the Dallas County juvenile
detention facilities how to make ice
cream for an ice cream competition at
the Dallas farmers market the moment
that I met these eight boys I realized
something that I didn’t know before I
had met them and that was that I had
stereotyped him the way they walk the
way they talk the way they sag their
pants the way they’re tattooed up which
if I didn’t have a chef’s coat on would
make me a little bit of a hypocrite I
was wrong all eight of these young men
looked me in the eye when they spoke to
me and every single one of them called
me sir now as I mentioned I’ve been
cooking for 20 years I’ve been called a
lot of names in a lot of kitchens in a
lot of languages never once in any
language was that name sir these eight
young men were so
eager to learn and so enthusiastic to do
something that they could be proud of
most of which you could tell that was a
first-time feeling at 16 17 15 years old
first time in their lives there ever
were ever able to say I did this so we
made ice cream now when I tell you that
for these eight young men raspberry was
a flavor of candy they had never seen or
tasted a fresh raspberry you can imagine
how mind-blowing it was for them when I
made them taste fresh tarragon I believe
the exact quote was sir you want us to
eat grass and I said yes delicious
licorice flavored grass so we made ice
cream in two days later we went down to
the farmers market and these eight young
men in their little khaki pants and
beaten up white t-shirt jail attire
handed out their ice cream samples
alongside college culinary students with
the biggest smiles the biggest barrel
chests out just beaming full of pride
and at the end of the competition one of
the boys actually won the whole thing
beat the college students beat everybody
and when he won this young man tattooed
up pants saggin came running up to me
bent his knees and cocked his arms and
at the top of his lungs screamed at me
like a five-year-old that had just
gotten the greatest video game in the
history of video games for Christmas
screams sir I just love to cook and I
bent my knees and cocked my arms and
screamed as loud as he didn’t said sir
me too and he said I just love to make
food and give it to people and put a
smile on their face and it struck me
number one he could have said I want to
make food and make money so I can pay my
bills which is why every other person I
know that owns restaurants does it he
could have said I want to make food make
money and be famous which is why a lot
of people I know own restaurants are
but he said I want to make food and give
it to people and put a smile on their
face and it reminded me that the first
time I met him I had stereotyped him it
also reminded me of my childhood because
I am Texas born in Texas bred
which means that I grew up having Sunday
supper at my grandparents house every
Sunday so food to me meant a lot more
than just eating it was about family it
was about love it was about camaraderie
and it really touched me when he said I
just love to make food and give it to
people and put a smile on their face he
said to me when I get out I’m gonna get
a job in a restaurant and then asked my
professional opinion on whether he
should work at Wendy’s or Chili’s my
answer whoever hires you first and I
drove home that day and I knew that a I
was never going to see him again he is a
juvenile under custody of the juvenile
department they are not going to hand
out any type of personal or private
information of a child to a stranger I
also knew not to the extent I do now but
I knew that the moment that he went home
the odds of him actually getting a job
at a Wendy’s or Chili’s were very very
slim because at the end of the day he’s
gonna go right back to the same house
the same street the same neighborhood
the same school the same gangs the same
every single thing that had led him at
15 years old straight to jail and I
thought it’s not fair it’s not right
somebody has got to do something about
this and I blamed every one of you for
not doing something how dare you and
then I realized that I was being a
hypocrite because by blaming you I
wasn’t taking accountability and that’s
I I don’t want to be a hypocrite so I
tried to figure out something to do it
took me about a year working with the
juvenile Department working with another
organization that did some programs and
classes inside juvenile facilities to
try to figure out how can I help these
kids see
how great they are how can i empower
them to live to their full potential the
two things that they kept telling me and
working with the kids is you have to
provide something with consistency and
stability consistency and stability and
at the end of the day the only thing
that I knew consistently well and was a
stability of my life was the restaurant
once so I decided I just want to open a
restaurant and let these kids run it but
I realized that a restaurant is not
enough because just giving these kids a
job is like putting a bandaid on a
waterfall the juvenile justice industry
term to describe the population that I
work with is throwaway
these are children teenage children that
have been discarded since the day they
were born
by their family by their streets their
neighborhoods their communities which
means that they have no access to
housing no access to health care no
access to food no access to education no
access to jobs so if you really want to
help these kids you really have to do
something that holistically addresses
all of these needs so I built a
restaurant cafe momentum a 12-month paid
post release internship for young men
and young ladies coming out of juvenile
detention in addition to working their
way through every station in the
restaurant washing dishes bussing tables
prep cook line cook server host hostess
we also focus on life skill and social
skill training and we have a case
management team that works to build an
ecosystem of support around the kids
addressing issues like homelessness
addressing issues like hunger addressing
issues like health care I think this
sounds like a great idea I did then I
still do now but back then when I would
tell people I’m gonna open up a
restaurant I’m gonna take kids out of
jail and teach them to play with knives
and fire and I need your money I was
laughed out of every room that I went
into and I was presented with a myriad
of stereo
types that were far greater than even
what I had had surmised on my own things
like what are you gonna do when those
kids stab each other in the kitchen
those kids they don’t want a job they
just want to collect a check those kids
have never been to a nice restaurant
those kids don’t know good food those
kids can’t do that those kids aren’t
smart and I knew that I had to figure
out a way to break through that
stereotype so in in June of 2011 we
launched a very first pop-up dinner and
the idea was really simple go into one
of the top restaurants in Dallas on a
Sunday night when they’re closed sell
tickets to a private dinner had the chef
write a four-course menu but his or her
staff to execute the food in the kitchen
and serve it to the level and quality of
service of that restaurant were eight
kids that we would bust in from juvenile
detention now full disclosure that very
first dinner I had no idea if anybody
would show up I had a plan to call my
mom and have her guilt the ladies in her
Bible study class into buying tickets to
go to the dinner but in 24 hours with
only two people posting a link to the to
the dinner to buy tickets we exceeded
our goal of 50 by almost 50% before we
could shut the PayPal down that very
first dinner 68 people showed up at the
dinner and before they left every single
one of them either shook my hand or gave
me a hug and said you know this could be
my son and that told me immediately that
all stereotypes had been broken we did
41 of those dinners over three and a
half years ramping up to the restaurant
opening the restaurant opened in the for
the first three months I developed a
severe psychological complex because for
three straight months every person that
would come in the restaurant would stop
me and go you know the food’s really
good they were shocked and I thought
what the hell like I’ve won awards
I ran a successful restaurant why are
you surprised what’s wrong with my
cooking ability is that people would be
so surprised and I real
even through three and a half years of
dinners opening up this restaurant
people still didn’t think that the kids
could do it so in in March of 2015
Leslie Brenner of the Dallas Morning
News showed up for her first of three
visits and if you don’t know anything
about Leslie know that she has a
reputation nationally to be hyper
critical of every restaurant that she
reviews in typically she’s known to to
be very harsh so you can imagine how
nervous I was when she showed up and at
the end of the evening when she said you
know I wasn’t expecting this and I just
looked at her and said well with all due
respect coming from you that’s the
scariest thing I’ve ever heard in my
entire life
she wrote of our restaurant that on any
given night we can go toe-to-toe with
the best restaurants in the city and
subsequently in the fall of 2015
eater Dallas named us restaurant of the
year in the Dallas of an observer named
us the best new restaurant of 2015 all
accolades that we’re very proud of
because it proves that these kids can
rise to whatever level of expectation
you set for them as long as you give
them the tools the resources the
guidance and the love to get there now
over the course of three and a half
years of pop-up dinners in a little over
two years of being open we’ve now worked
with almost 450 kids
I know those 450 kids we’ve actually
studied outcomes to know if what we’re
doing is really effective above and
beyond just teaching them how to cook of
those 450 kids statistically speaking
forty-seven percent of them are roughly
half should have gone back to jail
within 12 months that is the recidivism
rate or reincarnation rate for juvenile
offenders in the state of Texas at Cafe
momentum 15.2% have ever gone back to
jail at all which means as I like to say
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings owes me a
check for about fourteen million dollars
because that’s how much money we’ve
saved taxpayers since we first started
working
with these young men and young ladies
out of 450 kids on average there are two
grade levels behind 62% of them are
homeless when they come to us if you’re
15 16 years old and you’re homeless
that typically also means you’ve been
abandoned which comes with its own set
of trauma related issues our kids come
to work every day and what they eat at
the restaurant is typically all they get
to eat from the time they get there
we’ve said from the time they leave
until the time they come back the very
next day all of these issues all of
these obstacles and yet when you give
them a little bit of confidence and tell
them they’re good they begin to believe
in themselves they stop doing things
like criminal acts and going back to
jail and they start doing things like
becoming contributing productive members
of their community they start doing
things like achieving their own
potential I’ll give you one example of a
young man that graduated from our
program last April about a year ago
his name is Abbas ie a novice ie is a
second-generation Mexican immigrant that
means his parents crossed the border
illegally and worked jobs that illegal
immigrants worked and in the meantime
they got married and started a family
and they ended up getting divorced when
they got divorced they took a household
of poverty and divided it into two
households of higher poverty and yes
that is a thing which meant that Abbas
ie he went from having some stuff to
having nothing and being afraid to ask
his mom for things that she would
complain that his dad was supposed to
provide and and afraid to ask his down
for things that he would complain that
his mom was supposed to provide so he
turned to the streets to figure out how
to take care of himself when I say how
to take care of himself
I mean how to have shoes to wear to
school how to have pencils to write with
in school how to have food for he and
his brother and sister in the evening he
got in trouble and went to jail upon
going to jail he went through our
program obviously he graduated from our
program and went to work with one of our
employment partners the Hilton Anatole
and within three months he was
noted at 17 years old Albus ie is making
between 700 and a thousand dollars a
week which makes him the breadwinner of
either household he has full health
benefits a paid vacation and a 401k in
January I got to go and watch Abba side
walk across the stage as the first high
school graduate ever of his family and
he is about to enroll as a full-time
college student at El Centro College
what this tells us is that the effect
goes beyond Abbas ie what it tells us is
that his children will not grow up in
poverty what it tells us is that his
children will grow up in a household
we’re going to graduating high school is
expected we’re going to college is
expected and we’re being a contributing
member of your community as expected and
that is why we call it momentum thank
you
[Applause]
that I am a chef by trade not an
attorney I’ve been cooking for about 20
years and in 2007 reached the peak of my
career which was to own my own
restaurant I bought into a restaurant in
downtown or uptown area of Dallas and
was the executive chef and co-owner of
this restaurant the same year the
economy in our country tanked into the
second worst recession that the country
has ever seen and I thought to myself
what have I done
I sold a house took out the equity took
out a loan to pay off the rest of the
debt to buy into this restaurant and
then thought I’ve made the greatest
mistake of my life that first year of
owning the restaurant I grew the
business 38% was nominated for Best Chef
in Dallas and life couldn’t have been
better in that first year I also had an
opportunity to teach eight young men and
one of the Dallas County juvenile
detention facilities how to make ice
cream for an ice cream competition at
the Dallas farmers market the moment
that I met these eight boys I realized
something that I didn’t know before I
had met them and that was that I had
stereotyped him the way they walk the
way they talk the way they sag their
pants the way they’re tattooed up which
if I didn’t have a chef’s coat on would
make me a little bit of a hypocrite I
was wrong all eight of these young men
looked me in the eye when they spoke to
me and every single one of them called
me sir now as I mentioned I’ve been
cooking for 20 years I’ve been called a
lot of names in a lot of kitchens in a
lot of languages never once in any
language was that name sir these eight
young men were so
eager to learn and so enthusiastic to do
something that they could be proud of
most of which you could tell that was a
first-time feeling at 16 17 15 years old
first time in their lives there ever
were ever able to say I did this so we
made ice cream now when I tell you that
for these eight young men raspberry was
a flavor of candy they had never seen or
tasted a fresh raspberry you can imagine
how mind-blowing it was for them when I
made them taste fresh tarragon I believe
the exact quote was sir you want us to
eat grass and I said yes delicious
licorice flavored grass so we made ice
cream in two days later we went down to
the farmers market and these eight young
men in their little khaki pants and
beaten up white t-shirt jail attire
handed out their ice cream samples
alongside college culinary students with
the biggest smiles the biggest barrel
chests out just beaming full of pride
and at the end of the competition one of
the boys actually won the whole thing
beat the college students beat everybody
and when he won this young man tattooed
up pants saggin came running up to me
bent his knees and cocked his arms and
at the top of his lungs screamed at me
like a five-year-old that had just
gotten the greatest video game in the
history of video games for Christmas
screams sir I just love to cook and I
bent my knees and cocked my arms and
screamed as loud as he didn’t said sir
me too and he said I just love to make
food and give it to people and put a
smile on their face and it struck me
number one he could have said I want to
make food and make money so I can pay my
bills which is why every other person I
know that owns restaurants does it he
could have said I want to make food make
money and be famous which is why a lot
of people I know own restaurants are
but he said I want to make food and give
it to people and put a smile on their
face and it reminded me that the first
time I met him I had stereotyped him it
also reminded me of my childhood because
I am Texas born in Texas bred
which means that I grew up having Sunday
supper at my grandparents house every
Sunday so food to me meant a lot more
than just eating it was about family it
was about love it was about camaraderie
and it really touched me when he said I
just love to make food and give it to
people and put a smile on their face he
said to me when I get out I’m gonna get
a job in a restaurant and then asked my
professional opinion on whether he
should work at Wendy’s or Chili’s my
answer whoever hires you first and I
drove home that day and I knew that a I
was never going to see him again he is a
juvenile under custody of the juvenile
department they are not going to hand
out any type of personal or private
information of a child to a stranger I
also knew not to the extent I do now but
I knew that the moment that he went home
the odds of him actually getting a job
at a Wendy’s or Chili’s were very very
slim because at the end of the day he’s
gonna go right back to the same house
the same street the same neighborhood
the same school the same gangs the same
every single thing that had led him at
15 years old straight to jail and I
thought it’s not fair it’s not right
somebody has got to do something about
this and I blamed every one of you for
not doing something how dare you and
then I realized that I was being a
hypocrite because by blaming you I
wasn’t taking accountability and that’s
I I don’t want to be a hypocrite so I
tried to figure out something to do it
took me about a year working with the
juvenile Department working with another
organization that did some programs and
classes inside juvenile facilities to
try to figure out how can I help these
kids see
how great they are how can i empower
them to live to their full potential the
two things that they kept telling me and
working with the kids is you have to
provide something with consistency and
stability consistency and stability and
at the end of the day the only thing
that I knew consistently well and was a
stability of my life was the restaurant
once so I decided I just want to open a
restaurant and let these kids run it but
I realized that a restaurant is not
enough because just giving these kids a
job is like putting a bandaid on a
waterfall the juvenile justice industry
term to describe the population that I
work with is throwaway
these are children teenage children that
have been discarded since the day they
were born
by their family by their streets their
neighborhoods their communities which
means that they have no access to
housing no access to health care no
access to food no access to education no
access to jobs so if you really want to
help these kids you really have to do
something that holistically addresses
all of these needs so I built a
restaurant cafe momentum a 12-month paid
post release internship for young men
and young ladies coming out of juvenile
detention in addition to working their
way through every station in the
restaurant washing dishes bussing tables
prep cook line cook server host hostess
we also focus on life skill and social
skill training and we have a case
management team that works to build an
ecosystem of support around the kids
addressing issues like homelessness
addressing issues like hunger addressing
issues like health care I think this
sounds like a great idea I did then I
still do now but back then when I would
tell people I’m gonna open up a
restaurant I’m gonna take kids out of
jail and teach them to play with knives
and fire and I need your money I was
laughed out of every room that I went
into and I was presented with a myriad
of stereo
types that were far greater than even
what I had had surmised on my own things
like what are you gonna do when those
kids stab each other in the kitchen
those kids they don’t want a job they
just want to collect a check those kids
have never been to a nice restaurant
those kids don’t know good food those
kids can’t do that those kids aren’t
smart and I knew that I had to figure
out a way to break through that
stereotype so in in June of 2011 we
launched a very first pop-up dinner and
the idea was really simple go into one
of the top restaurants in Dallas on a
Sunday night when they’re closed sell
tickets to a private dinner had the chef
write a four-course menu but his or her
staff to execute the food in the kitchen
and serve it to the level and quality of
service of that restaurant were eight
kids that we would bust in from juvenile
detention now full disclosure that very
first dinner I had no idea if anybody
would show up I had a plan to call my
mom and have her guilt the ladies in her
Bible study class into buying tickets to
go to the dinner but in 24 hours with
only two people posting a link to the to
the dinner to buy tickets we exceeded
our goal of 50 by almost 50% before we
could shut the PayPal down that very
first dinner 68 people showed up at the
dinner and before they left every single
one of them either shook my hand or gave
me a hug and said you know this could be
my son and that told me immediately that
all stereotypes had been broken we did
41 of those dinners over three and a
half years ramping up to the restaurant
opening the restaurant opened in the for
the first three months I developed a
severe psychological complex because for
three straight months every person that
would come in the restaurant would stop
me and go you know the food’s really
good they were shocked and I thought
what the hell like I’ve won awards
I ran a successful restaurant why are
you surprised what’s wrong with my
cooking ability is that people would be
so surprised and I real
even through three and a half years of
dinners opening up this restaurant
people still didn’t think that the kids
could do it so in in March of 2015
Leslie Brenner of the Dallas Morning
News showed up for her first of three
visits and if you don’t know anything
about Leslie know that she has a
reputation nationally to be hyper
critical of every restaurant that she
reviews in typically she’s known to to
be very harsh so you can imagine how
nervous I was when she showed up and at
the end of the evening when she said you
know I wasn’t expecting this and I just
looked at her and said well with all due
respect coming from you that’s the
scariest thing I’ve ever heard in my
entire life
she wrote of our restaurant that on any
given night we can go toe-to-toe with
the best restaurants in the city and
subsequently in the fall of 2015
eater Dallas named us restaurant of the
year in the Dallas of an observer named
us the best new restaurant of 2015 all
accolades that we’re very proud of
because it proves that these kids can
rise to whatever level of expectation
you set for them as long as you give
them the tools the resources the
guidance and the love to get there now
over the course of three and a half
years of pop-up dinners in a little over
two years of being open we’ve now worked
with almost 450 kids
I know those 450 kids we’ve actually
studied outcomes to know if what we’re
doing is really effective above and
beyond just teaching them how to cook of
those 450 kids statistically speaking
forty-seven percent of them are roughly
half should have gone back to jail
within 12 months that is the recidivism
rate or reincarnation rate for juvenile
offenders in the state of Texas at Cafe
momentum 15.2% have ever gone back to
jail at all which means as I like to say
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings owes me a
check for about fourteen million dollars
because that’s how much money we’ve
saved taxpayers since we first started
working
with these young men and young ladies
out of 450 kids on average there are two
grade levels behind 62% of them are
homeless when they come to us if you’re
15 16 years old and you’re homeless
that typically also means you’ve been
abandoned which comes with its own set
of trauma related issues our kids come
to work every day and what they eat at
the restaurant is typically all they get
to eat from the time they get there
we’ve said from the time they leave
until the time they come back the very
next day all of these issues all of
these obstacles and yet when you give
them a little bit of confidence and tell
them they’re good they begin to believe
in themselves they stop doing things
like criminal acts and going back to
jail and they start doing things like
becoming contributing productive members
of their community they start doing
things like achieving their own
potential I’ll give you one example of a
young man that graduated from our
program last April about a year ago
his name is Abbas ie a novice ie is a
second-generation Mexican immigrant that
means his parents crossed the border
illegally and worked jobs that illegal
immigrants worked and in the meantime
they got married and started a family
and they ended up getting divorced when
they got divorced they took a household
of poverty and divided it into two
households of higher poverty and yes
that is a thing which meant that Abbas
ie he went from having some stuff to
having nothing and being afraid to ask
his mom for things that she would
complain that his dad was supposed to
provide and and afraid to ask his down
for things that he would complain that
his mom was supposed to provide so he
turned to the streets to figure out how
to take care of himself when I say how
to take care of himself
I mean how to have shoes to wear to
school how to have pencils to write with
in school how to have food for he and
his brother and sister in the evening he
got in trouble and went to jail upon
going to jail he went through our
program obviously he graduated from our
program and went to work with one of our
employment partners the Hilton Anatole
and within three months he was
noted at 17 years old Albus ie is making
between 700 and a thousand dollars a
week which makes him the breadwinner of
either household he has full health
benefits a paid vacation and a 401k in
January I got to go and watch Abba side
walk across the stage as the first high
school graduate ever of his family and
he is about to enroll as a full-time
college student at El Centro College
what this tells us is that the effect
goes beyond Abbas ie what it tells us is
that his children will not grow up in
poverty what it tells us is that his
children will grow up in a household
we’re going to graduating high school is
expected we’re going to college is
expected and we’re being a contributing
member of your community as expected and
that is why we call it momentum thank
you
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: