MILWAUKEE — A new restaurant and coffee shop in Milwaukee’s Bronzeville neighborhood aims to change lives.
Kinship Café, 2153 N Doctor M.L.K. Jr. Drive, is the latest addition to a more than $100 million investment that turned a long-shuttered department store into a community hub called ThriveOn King.
The cafe was created by the Kinship Community Food Center, which has long operated a free community meal program and urban farm. The nonprofit also helps people who are underserved with housing, employment and mental health resources. It has a workforce training program for people who might otherwise struggle to find employment.
The cafe offers paid work experience for graduates of that training program, which covers culinary arts, hospitality and urban agriculture.
Ever McDonald, 19, is no stranger to the Kinship Community Food Center.
“Kinship has always been a place where we can go to get our groceries and stuff, have a good hot meal,” she said.
Now, McDonald is the mother of a 1-year-old boy named Josiah. She went through Kinship’s workforce training program to give him a better life.
“I want to give him like a different childhood experience. I want to be able to give him everything that he needs and not have to be stressed about where the money is going to come from,” she said.
McDonald said she has found her calling in the culinary arts. Now, she has a goal to own her own restaurant one day.
“That’s really the goal is to have a job that you love that impacts the world in a positive way, even if it’s just putting some food in some bellies,” she said. “That’s really what I’m here for, is to further my skills so that when I’m done with this program, just move on to bigger and better things in the culinary field.”
Those in the workforce training program also do group therapy, and work on personal and career development with trained counselors.
“The trainees get a chance to work on themselves, and I really love that about this program and this cafe,” said Kinship Café Manager Shania Hutchins. “It brings some sort of togetherness and people need that. People need that support. People need that love because everybody doesn’t have it.”
And customers help contribute to the mission by dining there.
The Kinship Café is open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.