The Restaurants Serving a Higher Calling

Great restaurants are known for offering superior service and making the dining experience memorable. But some Texas establishments are about so much more than just food and drinks.

Café Momentum, Dallas

When young people need a second chance at life, Café Momentum is a place that will take them in. The restaurant offers paid internships to recently released nonviolent juvenile offenders.

Chad Houser, the founder, CEO, and executive chef, has joked that he takes kids out of jail and teaches them to play with fire and knives. The truth is, he gives these kids not only a steady paycheck and a healthy routine, but also the chance to learn valuable job skills, culinary arts, and important life skills.

Approximately 100 young men and women, between the ages of 15 and 19, who were convicted of nonviolent crimes, participate in the program over the course of a year. For three nights a week, they work at the downtown Dallas restaurant, helping cook and serve food made from scratch. The rest of their week is spent working catering projects that Café Momentum offers.

The idea was sparked in 2008 when Houser volunteered to show a small group of juvenile offenders from Dallas County Youth Village how to make ice cream for a competition. Inspired by the experience, he soon created a series of pop-up restaurants staffed by former offenders. In January 2015, he opened the brick-and-mortar restaurant where almost 300 youths have since worked.

The program is sustained through the support of more than 110 individuals, foundations, and corporate sponsors and partners. Dozens of local chefs have also donated their time.

While its community service efforts may garner more attention, the dining experience is nothing to scoff at either. Café Momentum consistently receives high grades for its eclectic menu offerings and enjoyable atmosphere. 

The Mustard Seed Café, El Paso

According to Feeding America, the country’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, approximately one in six people in Texas struggles with hunger, and one in four children.

The Mustard Seed Café is working to better those odds in El Paso by ensuring that all its neighbors have access to a healthy lunch, regardless of their ability to pay.

Open Wednesday through Friday, the Mustard Seed attracts around 350 people per week. Menu items carry a suggested price. Guests pay what they are able, with some paying less and others leaving more to support the cause. Those who are unable to pay anything can volunteer to work an hour in the kitchen or the community garden right outside — where the café grows much of its local fare — in exchange for a meal. Signs written in English and Spanish instruct guests on how the system works. In addition to regular lunch hours, the café also hosts special evening dinners and other events in conjunction with local churches.

The Mustard Seed was the brainchild of good friends Christi Brown, Patsy Burdick, and Shelley Speicher. The trio initially discussed the possibility during the summer of 2011. They soon came to believe the idea was God’s way of teaching them humility, compassion, kindness, and love. Two years later, their vision became reality when the café opened in the Rio Grande neighborhood near downtown El Paso. 

The Chow Train, San Antonio

The Chow Train doesn’t limit itself to just one neighborhood — since 2005, the nonprofit food truck has wheeled healthy restaurant-quality food to hungry people across the Alamo City.

Founder Joan Cheever has been an advocate for the poor and hungry for more than 30 years. The idea for the truck began as a teaching tool for her preteen children not long after they moved to San Antonio in 2004. Fed up with hearing them say, “I want” too many times, she prepared a large pot of spaghetti or chili on the stove. She then loaded her kids in the car and proceeded to distribute the food to the homeless.

“We found people who were really hungry and they weren’t complaining, and I think we kind of got the message across,” Cheever said during a local radio interview.

The one-time teaching lesson soon turned into a semi-regular outing for Cheever, her husband, Dennis Quinn, and their kids. Eventually it grew into a regularly scheduled event, and then a full-time undertaking. The Chow Train was certified as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2011.

Every meal served starts with a hot soup, made with all fresh ingredients. Cheever said they do this to ensure everyone gets their vegetables, and because soup has a tendency to soothe people.

A full meal then follows. Typically it includes a salad, side, main course, and dessert. Local restaurants, caterers, and stores have partnered to help provide food, often donating perfectly good unused items that would otherwise go to waste.

The Chow Train has even traveled beyond San Antonio in times of need. In 2011, it ventured out to Joplin, Missouri, in the wake of an EF-5 tornado that took the lives of 158 people. The family also fed wildfire victims and first responders in Bastrop, flood victims in San Marcos and Wimberley, and tornado victims in Moore, Oklahoma.

Cheever was once a legal affairs journalist who served as managing editor of the National Law Journal. After becoming involved with feeding the hungry, she went back to school and earned an associate degree in culinary arts from St. Philip’s College. She is currently working on a book about the plight of homeless and hungry people in America. 

These organizations are just three examples of the work Texans are doing around the state to care for their communities. There are plenty of ways to get involved in efforts on a local and state level.

Find out more about your local volunteer opportunities.