Visionary by Time<\/a> magazine.<\/p>\nAs they so often do, awards and recognition follow results. To date, over 1,700 interns have graduated from its four-tiered internship program nationwide, which runs for roughly one year. Education is required; 100% of interns leave with a bank account (compared with 22% entering the program), and 77% receive mental health counseling. Houser gives the credit for those numbers to the interns, who he says have done more to change the narrative than anyone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwelve years ago, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, I was answering questions around, \u2018What are you going to do when the kids stab each other in the kitchen?\u2019\u201d Houser says. \u201cNow, it\u2019s not. The questions are \u2018When do you open and how can I help?\u2019 Which tells me that our kids have succeeded in changing the way the world talks about them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Elevate\u2019<\/p>\n
Like Cafe Momentum, Anton says he\u2019s ready to move forward, although it is a bittersweet proposition.<\/p>\n
He says he came to Cafe Momentum after making a series of bad choices while spending time with \u201cnot the right people,\u201d adding that working on the floor and interacting with customers came easily to him as well. Working in the program and meeting customers broadened his perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was raising a good household, but my environment was still toxic,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I just kind of soaked it up, and then made a mistake, and realized, \u2018Oh, this is not really me.\u2019 Now I\u2019ve just stuck to myself and separated my crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
As all interns do, Anton works each station of the kitchen. The dishpit is where he collects his thoughts, while pastry work is something he especially enjoys. He also works the dining room floor as a server, where his easy-going and ebullient earnestness is plain to see. It\u2019s also where he says his perspective has broadened the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only know what we were taught,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact that we have people here, and also customers that have done other things, or know people that did things \u2014 we\u2019re vulnerable to other things now that we never even thought of. Or stuff that we wanted to do, and it wasn\u2019t in our reach.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anton is the youngest brother in his family, but has enjoyed the impact of being one of the older teens in the program, which includes four tiers over 12 months. The first tier, stabilization, addresses basic needs interns may have and allows staff to build relationships with them. The second and third tiers, workforce development, offer counseling and confidence-building. The capstone tier ends with a presentation to other interns on their journey at Cafe Momentum. Each intern chooses the format of the presentation. For his capstone, Anton went with a Steve Harvey game show approach.<\/p>\n
Now set to leave Cafe Momentum before the flagship\u2019s completion, Anton says he is ready for his next chapter but doesn\u2019t know if he\u2019s ready to shut the book on his last. Financial literacy workshops have stimulated an interest in cryptocurrency and stocks. He also completed welding training as an intern, and now he wants to return to learn the electrical trade, with the goal of opening his own one-stop shop. His enrollment in business school will probably help with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like you don\u2019t want to leave,\u201d he says. \u201cIn a year you\u2019ll be so surprised how much you grow, and it\u2019s like when you\u2019re around just great people that just show you and influence you to do great stuff, you don\u2019t really want to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we have to elevate, and one day I will come back, maybe work here with the staff, or maybe donate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Space<\/p>\n
\u201cCasting a wider net,\u201d as Houser puts it, is one way Cafe Momentum can develop at its new East Dallas location. Enrichment programs at Cafe Momentum run past paid shifts at the restaurant. In addition to mental health support, case managers address housing instability, food insecurity, and legal advocacy by connecting interns with advocates and other nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n
The flagship is being built on land donated by the Meadows Foundation in the Wilson Historic District, which houses 35 other nonprofits on rent-free properties, including Hugs Cafe and Healthy Futures of Texas. Houser says that proximity will help Cafe Momentum secure more resources for interns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Meadows Foundation stepped up and said, \u2018Look, we believe in you so much, we believe in the kids, we\u2019re going to give you the land,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cWhich I think is really special and sets a precedent for future expansion, hopefully, but also I\u2019m excited to see what comes of us being immersed in that ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $10 million flagship will span 11,000 square feet of operational, administrative and programmatic space. The expanded footprint, complete with a private dining room, patio and indoor restaurant space, will allow the nonprofit to host more events and cooking classes similar to those interns led during the run-up to the Cotton Bowl in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the heart lies the kitchen, designed to accommodate two separate cooking islands and a dedicated prep area. More counter space will give kitchen staff leeway to experiment with new techniques.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cafe Momentum Academy will also get more space. Schooling is required for interns, some of whom may have been away from the education system for a year or longer. Around 67% choose to enroll at the academy, where instruction is delivered through online curriculum and in-person classes.<\/p>\n
Dr. Porshia Haymon, a licensed psychologist and director of programming at Cafe Momentum, said the new space has been built to allow a technology-adapted classroom to be split into separate spaces, enabling instructors to lecture on multiple subjects to two groups of students concurrently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just allows us to better serve those young people, and more of the young people who need this education from us at the same time,\u201d Haymon, also known by interns as Dr. P, says. \u201cWe\u2019re not having to choose or put anyone on a wait list or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expanding the conversation<\/p>\n
Expansion, for Houser, isn\u2019t just physical. He wants to broaden the scope of Cafe Momentum\u2019s work, with an end goal of working himself out of a job, as he puts it.<\/p>\n
More space will help with that. He says he wants to begin offering GED programs for parents at the flagship and potentially host job fairs, both of which address underlying factors driving the need for his organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great that our kids are getting their support, but if the same support is not being received at home, there\u2019s a disconnect,\u201d Houser says. \u201cThere\u2019s still a level of anxiety that\u2019s not been removed, a weight that hasn\u2019t been lifted off of their shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond its immediate impact on the Dallas community, Houser says the new space will help elevate a national conversation about justice-affected youth. In 2025, an ice cream shop opened in Delaware, run by justice-affected youth. The local ABC affiliate subsequently reported that Scoop on Loockerman drew inspiration from Cafe Momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re doing our job right, then we\u2019re not putting Band-Aids on waterfalls,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re going upstream, and we\u2019re getting to the root, and we\u2019re understanding how our kids got to where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The kids we serve\u2019<\/p>\n
A decade into his mission, and despite the flow of awards and growth Cafe Momentum has earned, Houser is quick to hand credit to interns, staff and cities like Dallas for creating that success. He\u2019s still humble, and says it\u2019s easy to stay grounded because, as he puts it, \u201cI\u2019m the absolute least important person in this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as the people around him keep Houser grounded, he says his old friend\u2019s biscuits provide consistency on an ever-changing menu. They are a common thread, he says, \u201cgrounding everything in the roots of the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what the metaphorical biscuits will be throughout the next decade of Cafe Momentum\u2019s progression, he answers quickly \u2014 as if it\u2019s obvious.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will always be led by the kids we serve,\u201d Houser says. \u201cThey built this and they continue to. We continue to listen, we continue to learn, we continue to move and pivot and shape and reshape and think and rethink based on what we\u2019re learning from them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sitting at a high-top table in his downtown restaurant, Cafe Momentum, Chad Houser coolly checks email on his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[18507,102,104,103],"class_list":["post-374217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-cover-story","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"the](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/CafeMomentum_Exterior_AlisonMcLean_01.jpg\")
Cafe Momentum is still downtown but is planning a move to East Dallas early 2027. <\/p>\n