TRICKLEBEE CAFÉ
The business model at Tricklebee is somewhat unusual - they say pay what you can. Christie Melby-Gibbons, the owner, explains it: "There's sort of a balance at the end of the day. Maybe a couple people wouldn't have paid anything and those folks, they would usually be a homeless neighbor or a child and they literally have no income, so we don't expect them to put in money. But sometimes they will offer to help give up their time, pick up litter from around the building or bus tables." They offer a guideline for what the meal cost to make and others pay what they can or donate extra and in the end everything evens out. The menu is highly seasonal, as most of their produce is sourced locally. Tricklebee helps feed back into that issue of food literacy in the neighborhood. They don't mind sharing recipes with those who ask, sending some out in their monthly newsletter, teaching helpers in the kitchen. Just providing a healthy alternative puts the option on the table for some residents. "There's one woman in particular, she's lived in this neighborhood her whole life and she's a vegetarian who wants to become vegan. She's never been a vegan because she can't find easy ways to eat that way in this neighborhood. So she was eating at Wendy's all the time and getting just cheese on bread and fries and a salad, but finding that she just was never full or satisfied, so she's here a couple times a week. She's a bus driver for MPS and she'll just park the bus out front and come in. She's always asking, how can I make this at home?" Tricklebee Café is an inclusive place. Neighborhood kids are welcome and fed with snack bags after school, people of means and people of need find a seat together at the long table and once a week they host a neighborhood Agape Meal. Christie calls the restaurant an oasis and sometimes props the door open to let the smells of that safe place bring neighbors in. AMARANTH BAKERY
Amaranth Bakery has been in business on Lisbon Avenue since 2006, owned by Stephanie Shipley and Dave Boucher, who I spoke with about both the food they offer and their place in the community. Dave tells the story of a couple who came into the bakery just after they had opened one morning: "They grabbed some soup to go, because he was taking her to work or whatnot and they called maybe fifteen minutes later, because one of them was hungry and they'd started eating a little bit of soup on the way. They had just pulled over and had lunch right there, just reflecting on number one the soup and then that they could just stop and think and enjoy that moment instead of rushing to the next thing. And then they had the thoughtfulness to call and say the soup is amazing and we just needed to let you know. "It's those sorts of moments that come up around food that make it much more than that pill you would take on Star Trek." He says the best thing about slow food is that you can have fast slow food. That's good food that someone else cooked all day and you can still have a nutritious meal. Beyond food for the body, though, the goal leans towards growing a healthy network of relationships within the community. Dave says most of what they've accomplished since purchasing the building more than fifteen years ago has relied on this network. The bakery helps small businesses get started, including Tabal Chocolate. They've had caterers, cake makers, sweet potato pie makers. The sweet potato pies were being sold in stores like Galst Foods on North Avenue, but that entrepreneur didn't find out about Dave and Stephanie because of advertising on local TV channels. Dave says, it's because of the neighborhood network. The two also purchased the building across the street, which is now the home and studio to local artist, Muneer Buhaudeen. He hosts neighborhood workshops and posts the art in the empty lots next to that building and Amaranth. This doesn't have anything to do with food, but adds another tier to the growing neighborhood network that Amaranth has helped establish. "One of our employees came to us, because her son, who is just a really young lad who had helped us out with the farmers market for a couple summers, he came to me one day and said, 'I'm really concerned about my mom. She's not doing well and she just really needs a job.' And this is coming from an 11 year old son and of course we hired her, because how could you not? "When a young man is so caring about his mom and her well-being - you wouldn't have a good son without a good mom and we also knew his mom's mom and so that's the way these networks happen. That's why food can be the thing that brings people together. Not by going to McDonald's and going through the drive through." This network, built of relationships in the neighborhood, is a source of stability, which is something Washington Park and similar neighborhoods haven't had in some time. Even neighborhoods on the East Side of Milwaukee, filled with individuals who are stable on their own, are not held together by such relationships. Neighbors don't necessarily know one another; it's a certainty that great opportunities have been missed because of it. |
"We've tried at different times to take the emphasis off the food a little bit… food is sometimes just the means for gathering as a community. It's how you get people in the door - the gathering is what's important."
REV. CHRISTIE MELBY-GIBBONS "Community gardens - we were very involved in starting many of them 10 to 15 years ago. It wasn't just for food, it was a three part piece. It was of course for food for the family, for food for farmer's markets, but also more importantly as a tool to get people out in their neighborhood, to be present there so that others would see that folks are out."
DAVE BOUCHER |