Reaching Out to Get Good Things Started

Wholesome food has become an issue in Detroit. Until recently Detroit had no supermarkets. Finding fresh vegetables was not easy and could be expensive. Those with cars drive to the suburbs to shop. Those without cars eat few vegetables. Fast-food chains thrive in Detroit. To help the city, churches, schools and the private sector are all working hard to get good food to families, to teach the importance of eating well, to provide working experience for those who want to consider food service as a career and to provide space, tools, advice and capital for entrepreneurs to make the transition from kitchen dream to real working business. Here are merely some of the many groups working to help others succeed.

“RESTORE THE MOOR”

Even by Detroit standards of bad neighborhoods, Brightmoor is seen as chronically poor, drug infested and largely an abandoned corner of Detroit. One of the biggest problems is outsiders coming into Brightmoor to illegally dump truckloads of garbage and trash on streets and driveways. But in no other neighborhood has urban farming helped people both physically and psychologically.

Until farms like the Brightmoor Farmway near Eliza Howell Park began, people never left their homes. Under the group Christian Community Development Association, which later spawned the nonprofit organization Neighbors Building Brightmoor (NBB), a series of farms has been built up over the last seven years to draw the neighbors together. The Brightmoor Farmway, which meanders over about nine blocks through the city’s northwest side, is full of gardens, orchards, sculpted landscapes, pocket parks and even goats, chickens and beehives. It is surrounded by blight, but even there, volunteers have painted abandoned homes in bright, cheerful colors.

Students tend youth gardens and sell the produce at the local farmers markets. Adults grow a wide variety of vegetables and flowers in separate gardens. Detroit City Council member James Tate, who was instrumental in pushing through urban garden legislation for Detroit, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press, saying, “The Brightmoor Farmway has given new identity to Brightmoor.” The head of Brightmoor Farmway, Riet Schumack, said that James Tate is a real supporter, never missing their monthly meetings and coming to their parties. While NBB has worked with many outside organizations, there has been very little outside funding. From the start, people are given space to garden, seeds, advice and tools—then it is entirely up to them. They make of it what they will.

Neighbors Building Brightmoor now also has a tool bank—including riding lawn mowers and hoop houses for an extended growing season—which the whole neighborhood shares. Among all the agricultural endeavors, the neighborhood has also taken on some projects of a more artistic and recreational nature. There are semi-regular art classes for neighborhood children, as well as a playhouse and a bonfire pit, where they have fires almost every night.

But this does not come easily. Volunteers logged twenty thousand hours of time in the gardens in 2012. And it’s hard work to keep it together. People can be rough, and they get into fights. Many describe the effort as “fragile.” It is definitely helping Brightmoor but not restoring it.

Everyone must do their part and work together on all issues.

GOURMET UNDERGROUND DETROIT

One of the drivers of the new food movement in Detroit is the Internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter—any news food related travels fast. Gourmet Underground Detroit (GUD) is an example of a group that is using Twitter and Facebook to share information on new openings, food demonstrations, urban farms, wine tastings, a chef in need of help, pop-up events and more. GUD was started three years ago by part-time restaurant critics Evan Hansen and Todd Abrams as a simple blog on wine, beer and drinking, but through e-mail, they began alerting a tight-knit but expanding community of any and all things in Detroit food related. As Evan Hansen explained, “The group grew and began holding wine tastings and food demonstrations such as pickling techniques.” Things continued to grow until now GUD has 1,600 members on Facebook.

As Hansen described GUD, “We propagate knowledge. Hold picnics and potlucks. There’s no money in it. Our focus is anything interesting that is non-mainstream food related.”

More people started contributing to GUD, such as Noelle Lothamer, a journalist and blogger, and Marvin Shaouni, a Detroit photographer. Others include food makers, drink professionals, photographers and more who gather together to nurture and promote growers, startup producers, restaurants, pop-ups, winemakers or anything related to the production and enjoyment of great food in Detroit.

GUD knows what’s going on in Detroit, and it has earned the respect of outsiders; the New York Times contacts GUD for article leads and insights on the Detroit food scene, mostly recently on the pop-up Tashmoo Biergarten.

Hansen talked about his take on the food-related activities and Detroit:

Detroit food scene gets a lot of attention from the national press. It’s not because we have large numbers of great restaurants, like in New York or elsewhere. Absolutely not. I think it’s because Detroit has had so many years of bad news [that] people are amazed that things are coming back in this way. National press, like Martha Stewart Magazine, have paid a lot of attention to Corktown. But other newspapers and magazines are following the food startups. Everything is wide open. We have wine tastings in abandoned churches. There is an urban farm starting in Highland Park, and people want to go check it out and show support. This is just not done in other cities.

He sees a good future as well. “Today, a new independent startup can draw a lot of local attention, but I see as more people move into Detroit or come downtown to work the national chains will begin moving in…But that’s okay. There’s still tons of cheap space for inexpensive startups, and they will continue. Many of the people who have succeeded, like Phil Cooley [Slows Bar-B-Q], plan to keep going and open second and third places. So the independents will keep growing. I see a mix of both for the future.”

As Gourmet Underground Detroit notes on its website: “The food revolution is here—grab your (pitch)fork and join in!”

FOODLAB DETROIT

Jess Daniel, twenty-eight, is the founder and current director of FoodLab in Detroit. FoodLab is a community of food entrepreneurs committed to making the possibility of good food in Detroit a sustainable reality, and it is developing a food movement that is accountable to all Detroiters. It views the food business and community as a whole ecosystem. “It started in January of 2011 when seven people sat around the kitchen table at my house and decided to tackle what they saw as a need for local leadership in the city,” Daniel said.

As Daniel explained, FoodLab Detroit supports the development, growth and cooperation of locally owned socially and environmentally responsible food enterprises. FoodLab members do this by sharing info, resources and emotional support. They search for technical and financial assistance and practice a balance of financial, social and environmental goals.

FoodLab is fueled by the belief that diverse, locally owned and operated food businesses are critical elements to vibrant, resilient, healthy places. Daniel searches for food businesses that value more than profits, to create what Foodlab describes as social value. Producing, processing and serving food is powerful; food businesses have the opportunity to help address a broad array of environmental and social issues in the city of Detroit and the region. Daniel said that FoodLab is based loosely on a national outreach organization called Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) out of Oakland, California.

Members of FoodLab convene at regularly held monthly meetings. Resources are sought, such as professional kitchen space or storefronts that allow entrepreneurs who need a chance to move their kitchen business into a professional setting, like a commercial kitchen, without the capital and risk that usually comes with it.

Daniel came to Detroit in July 2011. “I am originally from California but, after college, moved around a lot. I worked on all aspects of food, from farms to federal agency policy, while living in Washington, D.C. I came to Detroit for a couple of conferences, then a friend moved here in 2010 and I thought it might be a good place to be.”

In 2011, Daniel started her own pop-up restaurant called Neighborhood Noodle, which featured southeast Asian cuisine and gave her direct experience as an entrepreneur. But her focus of late and that of the FoodLab organization has been on developing community leaders who see a broader landscape than simply starting a business, making a profit and then, if possible, giving something to charity a the end of the day.

“Detroit has a long history of this model, such as the auto industry. It is ‘linear’ thinking, and it hasn’t worked well. Everywhere the community is complex, a broad ecosystem which requires nonlinear thinking, creativity and ingenuity. How can one combine individual vision with that of others?”

To do this, FoodLab began a “boot camp” for leaders that was developed and run by five members who are businesspeople. The results have been projects like “Detroit Kitchen Connect,” which began in 2013.

The Detroit Kitchen Connect mission statement reads: “To provide reliable, accessible space for local entrepreneurs, community members and organizations to process high-quality food products in a diverse and collaborative learning environment.”

“What we’ve seen is there is a whole segment of entrepreneurs in specialty foods that keep hitting a barrier,” said Daniel. “We wanted to use what was already here to give them a space to expand their operations and be successful.”

Those who pass the application process and have the necessary licensing from the state will be able to rent kitchen time by the hour. Currently, two organizations with kitchens participate: St. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Southwest Detroit and Matrix Human Services in the Osborn neighborhood.

For the future, Daniel sees the FoodLab staying small despite initial success. “We don’t want a huge infrastructure. We want to build relationships and keep things small.”