We Are the City Spotlight: Old Skool Cafe
By Becca Eliasen and the Old Skool Cafe Staff
Old Skool Cafe is a 1920s style jazz-themed supper club, based in San Francisco’s Bayview/Hunter’s Point neighborhood, run by youth ages 16–22 coming out of the system of incarceration, foster care, and other challenging life circumstances. At our youth-run restaurant and catering social enterprise, founded by former corrections officer (and CNN Hero) Teresa Goines, youth receive intensive workforce development training, learn important life skills, and receive in-depth wrap-around support services each year. They receive ongoing mentoring and coaching while participating in all phases of business operations, from cooking to customer service. Old Skool’s training program is designed to be flexible, scaffolded, and progressive to meet the needs of our youth.
The heartbeat of Old Skool Cafe, and Teresa’s mission in life, is to be a place where youth are truly seen, heard and cherished. Her life’s work — and the entire purpose of Old Skool Cafe — has been to bring opportunity and equality to the young men and women of our community who have been the victims of systemic racial, economic, and social oppression; young men and women who have too often been left out or left behind as a result of inequality at nearly every level of society. It’s not just about a job: it’s about recognizing the full humanity of every child who comes into our program, providing them with the support, love, and encouragement that they are worthy of.
Since 2005, more than 600 youth have participated in the Old Skool Cafe program. 100% of youth who enter Old Skool Cafe’s 101 Training program gain employment, and 90% of youth who graduate from the program continue their employment or focus on school full time.
During March 2020’s Shelter-in-Place, Old Skool Cafe made tremendous strides to ensure that the youth wouldn’t end up out of work and risk jeopardizing the sense of stability and security they had built through the program. This included:
● Keeping the restaurant open and ensuring our youth never missed a paycheck
● Making swift adjustments to the training program without jeopardizing the connection and community the youth needed, especially in the absence of in-person schooling
● Providing healthy, nutritious meals to the staff via family meal on service days so they had access to healthy food
● Ensuring each youth had adult mentors and coaches to help them navigate the “new normal”
● Providing cash assistance to the families of certain youth that needed extra support and so much more.
Almost two years later, Old Skool Cafe still feels the effects of the Covid-19 restrictions. As a restaurant, we have fought hard to regain our clientele, and we’ve started new initiatives to serve our guests in ways that are comfortable to them. It has pushed our creativity to figure out how to create the special Old Skool Cafe experience for a guest that might never actually set foot in our restaurant.
It is our hope and dream that every young person who walks through our doors finds Old Skool Cafe to be a place to call home. When several of our youth graduated from high school, we hosted a special dinner for their families in our restaurant. Our donors bought gifts, made cookies, and our staff turned the restaurant into a beautifully decorated party venue! Even in a time when youth might feel isolated or separated, we want Old Skool to be a place that embraces them and celebrates their milestones.
One more success story… in the summer of 2021, Isaac, an Old Skool youth, was in a waiting stage: waiting to hear if he’d gotten into college, waiting to know whether or not he had saved enough money to pay for tuition. Even after getting accepted to the college of his choice, Isaac worried. He would be the first family member to go to college, a courageous choice!
Now Issac has his first two quarters of college completed, and we’re happy to report that he’s thriving. Over the summer he and I sat down together to work on his budget for college, and he discovered that not only did he have enough money to cover tuition, and room and board: Isaac had made enough money at Old Skool Cafe to get a head start on funding his second year of school!
Isaac built the financial freedom he needed to put himself through college. With the encouragement and support of community, he is writing a new story and creating a new legacy for himself and his family.
San Francisco is a vibrant, diverse city and a wonderful place to grow up. From food and music from around the world to some of the best museums around, San Francisco has something for everyone to explore. We love exposing our youth to new opportunities in and near the City. They’ve had the chance to go to Oprah 2020 Vision Tour, deliver meals to Golden State Warriors players, enjoy the great outdoors at Slide Ranch in nearby Muir Beach, and even help with grape stomping at our local winery, Gratta Wines.
San Francisco thrives when its children and youth thrive. In our work with hundreds of youth for over a decade in the City, we’ve seen common themes emerge. Our youth need safe, reliable, affordable housing. Our youth need safe, reliable public transportation. The ability to safely navigate the breadth of the City opens up new opportunities for jobs, recreation, school, and more. Keeping our parks and open spaces clean and safe helps our children and youth play and have fun and relieves stress, particularly during this season of the pandemic.
It’s our dream to have an Old Skool Cafe in other cities across the country. Through this model, we can show the nation what it looks like to truly listen to our young people and let them lead the way in finding their own solutions. Instead of locking up young people when they get into trouble, we can empower them through jobs, community, and purpose to overcome barriers and obstacles. When our guests chat with the youth during dinner, listen to them play incredible jazz, and eat the delicious food they’ve prepared, I know that something shifts and the guests begin to see, as we say, the gold within our youth. Economic and community empowerment work hand in hand to help break the cycle of poverty, violence, and incarceration. Instead of going back into the prison system, Old Skool Cafe youth are going to college and training schools and other jobs. I know that if this can work in San Francisco, it can work across the United States. Our best resources for the future are right in front of us.
