North Side restaurateur’s ‘social entrepreneurship’ brings widespread community benefits

Teresa Moore understands what it means to struggle. More importantly, she knows what it feels like when someone throws her a lifeline.

Moore — now a 20-year-old resident of Milwaukee’s North Side — was searching for work in October 2016 when she received some startling news from family in Gary, Indiana.

“My family called to tell me that my brother had been shot to death in a gas station. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Moore said. “The next day my father stopped breathing.”

Two weeks earlier, her father had suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma. 

Not knowing what to do next and still needing a job, she stopped in at The Tandem, a newly opened restaurant at 1848 W. Fond du Lac Ave., in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood. Owner Caitlin Cullen didn’t bat an eye.

“Caitlin hired me out of instinct. She took me in,” Moore said. “The restaurant family became my extended family. I call Caitlin ‘Mom.’”

When Moore fell out with a sister with whom she was living, Cullen gave her a futon and furnishings so she could move to her first apartment. Moore’s work at The Tandem provided the financial security she needed to go out on her own, much like it does for her peers and fellow employees.

“People who work here don’t usually quit,” said Moore, who also is pursuing a singing career. “We love Caitlin and we want to make sure she’s OK, just like she makes sure we’re all OK.”

Gaining neighborhood acceptance

Moore, who has gone on to become an experienced server and bartender, wasn’t the first person Cullen took in and she won’t be the last. 

In fact, according to Cullen, 59 young workers — most in their teens or early 20s — have been through her doors during the restaurant’s first 16 months, all with the idea of gaining enough work experience to get better jobs at other restaurants and businesses. 

Not all of them worked out, but she currently supports a roster of 26 full- and part-time workers, many of whom moonlight from other jobs just a day or two each week in order to stay connected to the place — and to the person who gave them their start.

“I wasn’t planning on being the white lady who owns a fried chicken place in a primarily black neighborhood,” said Cullen, 30, a native of Detroit’s Rochester suburb. “But there has always been a social missionary inside of me, and she changes her approach as times go by.”

Cullen’s current mission required a change of profession and location to land her in what was once Walter Schmidt’s Tavern, a popular Milwaukee watering hole from 1935 to 1968. To succeed, Cullen realized early that she would have to gain neighborhood acceptance and approval from those responsible for rejuvenating Lindsay Heights.

It was Cullen’s appreciation of the neighborhood, and especially her willingness to employ local young people, that helped her win that approval, according to Venice Williams, executive director of Alice’s Garden, a community garden and urban farm across Fond du Lac Avenue from the restaurant.

“When we look at white people coming into the community, it’s often something that happens to us, but not with us,” said Williams, who presides over The Table, the urban ministry that oversees the gardens. “From conversations with Caitlin, it was clear to me what her mission was and who she wanted to hire. She was deliberate about helping people who never thought about working in a kitchen.

“I would call this Caitlin’s ministry, although she may not use that word,” Williams added. “Without a doubt, her model has had a positive economic and social impact on the community.”

Long and winding road to Lindsay Heights

Cullen always loved to cook, but never thought she would own a restaurant. In fact, when she was growing up in Rochester with five siblings in a boisterous Irish-Catholic family and single-parent household, her sights were set on education. 

Thanks to the generosity of her grandfather, she attended a private Catholic high school.

“The school was nice, but we were the broke-est family there,” Cullen said. “As one comedian said, the nuns taught me so well that I don’t have to believe anymore, and I am no longer religious.”

Cullen later earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan and went to work teaching English in the Detroit Public Schools. 

To say she became disillusioned is an understatement.

“It’s a bankrupt system and the schools were run like a jail, complete with metal detectors,” she said. 

The first bell would ring, telling students they had to be in class. After the second bell five minutes later, teachers would sweep the halls and anyone caught outside a classroom went to detention.

“Is this the best way to promote education?” she asked.

After a year, Cullen accepted a position teaching children of privilege and serving as principal at the American School of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. 

She wasn’t satisfied with that school or its agenda.

After three years in the Caribbean, it was time for a major change. She called up a map of the Midwest on her computer, closed her eyes and put her finger to the screen. She landed directly on Milwaukee.

“I did some research and when I found out the city was home to the ‘Bronze Fonz,’ I knew this was my kind of place,” she said. “It was that and the friendliness of the people that caused me to stay.”

Over a three-week period she peppered local restaurants with her résumé. Her best offer was as a “greens cleaner” at Bavette La Boucherie in the Third Ward.

“It clicked for me as soon as I walked into Bavette for my first shift,” Cullen said. “Owner and chef Karen Bell pulled a pig’s head out of a pot in which it was braising for hours and told me it was my job to pick off all the meat, including the eyes.

“I couldn’t believe anyone would actually pay me to do this,” she said, almost joyfully.

Within 18 months, Cullen had advanced to sous chef and kitchen manager, making friends among restaurant co-workers and clients, the latter of whom were impressed that she was “always there.” The connections became valuable when, after three years, she left Bavette and took on the challenge of what would become The Tandem.

Meeting neighborhood needs

One of Cullen’s earliest steps to opening her restaurant was to meet with a group of Lindsay Heights community leaders and heads of local nonprofit organizations. The group met inside Walnut Way Conservation Corp., a 20-year-old, resident-led nonprofit that promotes growth and prosperity through environmental stewardship, catalytic development and economic prosperity for area residents.

Although he was not part of the group who vetted Cullen and her plans, Walnut Way executive director Antonio Butts said the group was impressed with the wannabe restaurateur’s drive and plans.

“We look for an inclusive alignment with the needs of the neighborhood,” said Butts. “The differentiator for The Tandem was her cultural inclusiveness across a variety of dimensions, including the willingness to engage the neighborhood youth to become part of her team.”

“Walk in the door of her restaurant and you will see people who are part of the neighborhood, and that inclusivity helps expel some of the negative myths about the neighborhood,” he added.

Cullen received the group’s blessing, and assembled 23 investors in her restaurant, including several Bavette clients. The smallest investment was $650 from a lifelong friend and the largest $25,000 from a downtown Milwaukee businessman. She also established a presence on fundmilwaukee.com, an online resource for investors interested in funding small businesses.

The combined effort was enough for Cullen to open the doors on what she has described as her 80-hour-per-week love affair.

The menu is always under development and based on what area residents want. And what she serves is diverse, catering to the growing number of local vegetarians and vegans.

“For every piece of fried chicken we serve, we also have a hearty salad,” said Cullen, who purchases her produce from Alice’s Garden.

Social entrepreneurship

Like many startups, The Tandem has operational costs that sometimes outstrip revenue. Staff and providers do get paid — that’s part of Cullen’s mission — but that sometimes leaves little left for the owner.

“I don’t really make any money at this,” Cullen said. “Except for a tank of gas, a pack of cigarettes and a modest contribution to the mortgage, I have to rely on my loving partner for support.”

Cullen’s partner, Tracy Grundy, owns The Shoppe, a hair salon and boutique in the Third Ward, right next door to Bavette. While not an investor in The Tandem, Grundy does take in some of Cullen’s workers, giving them reduced-cost services in exchange for folding towels or sweeping up.

“She’s my life partner and she also helps train new bartenders because she has a background in the hospitality industry,” Cullen said. “She knows the restaurant is my personal mission and she is there to support me.”

If all goes well, Cullen hopes to take some of the economic burden off her partner and investors this summer with the establishment of a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) subsidiary to offset the cost of training young people who approach the restaurant for jobs on an almost daily basis.

Technically, The Tandem is a single-owner limited liability corporation, or LLC. Establishment of a nonprofit entity would allow Cullen to solicit funds from various charitable organizations to finance the cost of job training, taking financial pressures off the restaurant.

“At some point I’d like to be able to pay myself, but money has never been the driving force with me,” Cullen said. “We’re a social entrepreneurship, and we have a deeper mission than just turning a profit.”

That mission is what has made Cullen and The Tandem such an important contributor to the community, said Butts. Her eventual success may help other entrepreneurs understand that the Lindsay Heights community is alive, well, and open for business.

“She is the proof of the concept,” Butts said. “She has absolutely contributed to the wealth of local people and to the work we’re doing in the neighborhood.

“It’s a balancing act, and we have to let the market live,” he added. “But her success lets people know that Lindsay Heights has an identity, and that it has a heart.”