The White Dog Cafe

Judy dreamed of having her own restaurant three decades ago while working as a waitress at another restaurant nearby. She worked her way up to becoming general manager but hit a dead end. “Though I was promised ownership, and played the role of the proprietress, the partnership was never formalized, so I set out on my own. I had to start from scratch after working for ten years to build this other business. But this was better than trying to be a partner with someone whose values didn’t align with mine.”

Initially the White Dog Café was a take-out muffin shop. Judy tapped every source she could find for the initial capital: $30,000 from her savings, $60,000 borrowed from various family members, $75,000 from a friend who sold a beach house, $50,000 in a low-interest loan from the Philadelphia Community Development Corporation. As the land value escalated, in part due to the success of the restaurant, bigger loans from banks became possible. Because she lived where she worked, Judy could secure loans in the form of a mortgage.

Judy sought to improve the socially responsible behavior of her restaurant at every turn. One key moment occurred in the late 1990s. After learning about the abysmal confinement of pigs in factory farming, she removed all pork products from the menu until she could find a local farmer who raised his pigs humanely. When she found one but discovered that he did not have a way to transport his meat, she extended him a low-interest loan to buy the truck. To ensure that his truck was full on each trip, she organized other restaurants in Philadelphia—her competitors—to substitute humanly raised pork as well.

She started a nonprofit, White Dog Community Enterprises, initially funded by the restaurant’s profits, to support local food initiatives through its Fair Food programs, including chef consulting in local purchasing, local farm tours, farm-to-school and farm-to-hospital programs, and the Fair Food Farm Stand. Future plans of the Foundation include helping inner-city residents create their own sustainable businesses.

While serving as board chair of Social Ventures Network (SVN), a national consortium of progressive businesspeople, Judy recognized the need for organizing local networks of independent businesses. She despaired when she saw how many of her friends in SVN had sold out to larger companies—Ben & Jerry’s was bought by Unilever, Stonyfield Yogurt by Group Dannone., and Odwalla Juices by Coca-Cola. Her response was to help launch, in 2001, the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). At the same time, Judy launched a BALLE-affiliated local effort called the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and made it a project of White Dog Community Enterprises.

All these initiatives, Judy argues, were an integral part of White Dog’s “business.” But the price of this expansive view of her job, as well as her irresistible impulse toward assuming leadership, was exhaustion. “When you have a hundred employees, and young people, there are always emergencies—deaths, babies, quitting, firings. It’s what makes the business interesting, but it’s also what makes it tiring after so many years.”

By the time we did our first interview with Judy, in early 2008, she had decided it was time to retire from the restaurant business. “I’ve been running restaurants my whole adult life, thirty-five years, and I don’t want to do it anymore because my nonprofit work is pulling me away, and that’s where I feel I can do the most good.”

She began shopping for new partners. She had hoped that her daughter might take over the business, but she has “seen how hard it is for me, and doesn’t want to be responsible for running the business....” She looked on websites like iHospitality and through job-hunting companies. “[But] I just got hacks.”
“I need someone who really understands the restaurant business,” Judy complained, “but many in the restaurant business have lousy values. People who are smart and socially active often don’t want to run a restaurant or don’t know how to. We’re a really odd combination.”

She thought about moving ownership to her employees, but concluded that “they’re not, I don’t know what you would call it, entrepreneurs? It’s hard—restaurant work is often a working class job—cooks, servers, bartenders. There is often a big difference between someone who owns and someone who works in a restaurant. It’s rare to find someone in this kind of business who starts as waitress or bartender and who becomes an owner. It happens, as I did it, but it’s rare.”

“To get high caliber people, you need to give them a piece of the action. I think that’s a better ownership model. That’s what I’m looking for now. I would like to have shared ownership again, but haven’t found the right people.”

Ultimately, Judy decided to hand the keys to her kingdom to an seasoned Philadelphia restaurateur. The unusual aspect of the sale, which took place in January of 2009, is that Judy retains ownership of the brand and licenses it back to the new owner with a “social contract.” Through the contract, Judy protects the values of the business, including local purchasing, humanely raised meat and poultry, composting, recycling, and a host of other practices that must be adhered to in order to use the name “White Dog Café.” Any additional restaurant locations must abide by the same contract including local, independent ownership. But beyond policing the social contract, Judy no longer has to worry about the daily management headaches. Plus, she now has the financial and time resources to devote her full attention to nonprofit work.