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North Minneapolis Cafe Aims To Make Fresh Food, Create Jobs For Youth

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A new cafe in north Minneapolis promises to do much more than offer residents fresh and healthy comfort foods.

Breaking Bread Cafe will offer employment to at-risk youth in the community. It will also offer culinary arts and food service management training, all while filling a void in a community where fresh, healthy foods are in limited supply.

The cafe will be the place where food and social justice coexist. A community driven eatery, focused on bringing healthy food and youth development opportunities, now sits in the heart of north Minneapolis.

"This community has been waiting for this for a very long time," Lachelle Cunningham said.

Breaking Bread Cafe and Catering is a collaborative effort of organizations that focus on food as a tool to build health, wealth and social change.

Executive Chef Lachelle Cunningham said this space will be used to train the next generation. Working alongside her staff will be young people looking for positive change in their lives.

"We hope that youth will be able to come in our doors, learn job skills and learn how to start their own business eventually one day and contribute and give back to the community," Cunningham said.

Breaking Bread Café will also serve as a gathering spot. Here, all those involved in attacking the issues of obesity and diabetes in the African-American community will work together to improve lives.

"We're making gardens where we can build and grow our own food and then were challenging ourselves to sell that food vendors like Sammie's and La Eddie at the Lowry Café and then once you do that, you can put some produce into the corner stores," Princess Titus, co-founder of Appetite for Change, said.

Appetite for Change is the nonprofit group spearheading this effort. An effort everyone there hopes will be contagious and spread throughout a community in need of positive change.

"We're all using food to bring people together," Titus said.

Breaking Bread Cafe and Catering officially opens at 7 a.m. Thursday for breakfast and lunch. The space will be available in the evenings for catering and community events.

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