Whole Life Times: Homegirl Cafe

April 2008 | Healthy Living :: Tastebuds

Homegirl Cafe

Helping kids get off the streets, one apple turnover at a time

By Lucinda Michele Knapp

The comforting scent of warm, freshly baked bread rises into a high-ceilinged room in a summery-yellow downtown building. The elaborate red, marigold and green pagoda-style roofs rise up right next to the brand-new bakery, bursting with color and life. The building bustles with energy: patrons moving in and out, workers chatting, men and women laughing.

This could be a scene from Café Anywhere, except that almost everyone rushing past, intent upon their tasks for the day, is heavily tattooed — hinting, perhaps, of darker pasts.

Old English-style lettering announces names of streets and neighborhoods and commemorates the departed and beloved; young girls wear the names of their boyfriends scrolling in gangland cursive across the backs of their necks. The men, still with the streetwise swagger but now busy with tasks unrelated to drugs, crime or violence, wear images of pretty girls and ferocious dogs and prison nicknames across their forearms — forearms now busily crafting apple turnovers or gently tending rising bread loaves.

This is the new home of Homeboy Industries, which includes Homegirl Café, the Homeboy Bakery, a store full of fundraising merchandise, a charter school, a tattoo removal clinic, a counseling center and hundreds of young people rebuilding their lives. Founded in 1992 by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest whose dedication to East LA’s young people led him to create Jobs For A Future/Homeboy Industries.

Homegirl Café’s warm golden walls host a room full of diners of every ilk: suburban-looking white ladies, locals noshing on an office break, and, of course, homeboys and homegirls. A to-go case offers crisp, fresh salads with light, zesty dressings and sandwiches; canisters of loose tea sit upon the counter. Their fragrant, cinnamon-laced house coffee is prepared with a secret recipe, heavily guarded by manager Patty Zarate, whose soft-spoken voice belies a stern-but-loving approach to the young women whose work she oversees. “All aspects of the café, from doing service to cooking to cleaning, is quite new, so everybody’s in the process of learning,” she explains. The young women preparing the food come from gangs, broken homes, abusive relationships and at-risk situations; most flourish under Zarate’s stewardship.

Serving an updated, Cal-fresh take on Latin cuisine, Homegirl’s highlights are that sublime coffee, rich chilaquiles, savory house-made mole, and refreshing salads with mango, jicima and bright red peppers. From the bakery — open every morning at 7am — come napoleons, fruit tarts, tortes and rich chocolate cakes, light French palmiers and delicate apple turnovers, all handmade by the homeboys, many of whom have officially caught the foodie bug and are continuing their education (several even moving on to get Cordon Bleu degrees).

“These young people are learning what it takes to be successful in a job,” explains Mona Hobson, director of development. “Some went into camp and foster care at a very young age and don’t know the things most people take for granted, but they’re eager to learn and they want to be contributing members of society.”

As a girl named Rosa rings up our orders, one homeboy in a wheelchair chats animatedly with two young Latinas in nurse’s scrubs and a heavily-inked worker from Homeboy’s adjacent offices. Their energy seems to vibrate off the iridescent tiled walls. “For Homeboy, success is coming in and saying, ‘I need help,’” explains Hobson. For these young people in Homegirl Café, success happens every day.

Homegirl Café, 130 W. Bruno Street, LA; homeboy-industries.org; 323.526.1254 x301.

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