Kinship Cafe Joining ThriveOn King

ThriveOn King development in April, 2024. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A partnership with Kinship Community Food Center will bring a cafe presence to ThriveOn King, a newly developed community hub in Bronzeville.

Slated to open later this fall, Kinship Cafe plans to advance the food center’s mission by offering healthy meals and a local gathering place, while taking a holistic approach to addressing the intersecting struggles of hunger, isolation, and poverty in Milwaukee.

The public-facing cafe will serve coffee and espresso drinks, along with a menu featuring hot sandwiches, healthy bowls, salads and grab-and-go options.

Meanwhile, cafe operations will dovetail with the nonprofit’s established workforce training program, which aims to create employment opportunities for systems-impacted individuals, including those affected by the criminal justice system and other institutions.

JobsWork MKE, also a ThriveOn King tenant, will serve as a community partner in the initiative.

Through the program, Kinship provides paid work experience in culinary arts, urban agriculture and hospitality, with an emphasis on social connection and personal development.

“We are committed to paving the way for career stability and personal healing, ensuring that everyone, including myself and all members of our workforce team, has the opportunity to grow and thrive together,” said Demonte Dismuke, workforce development manager for Kinship, in a statement.

ThriveOn King opened earlier this year at 2153 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. The $105 million development is the result of a partnership between the Greater Milwaukee Foundation (GMF), Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Royal Capital Group, which transformed the former Gimbels department store into a signature development for both the surrounding neighborhoods and the city at large.

The cafe is just one piece of a multi-faceted project that also encompasses several community meeting spaces, more than 100,000 square feet of Class A office space, 89 apartments, an early childhood center, a blood donation center and a new parking structure.

“Kinship’s inclusion among the mosaic of partners contributing to the activation of  ThriveOn King will help us meet two community-identified priorities at the same time,” said Greg Wesley, president and CEO of the GMF, in a statement. “In our initial visioning process and throughout our ongoing engagement, neighbors have consistently named access to nutritious food and access to jobs among their highest priorities. Thanks to this arrangement, the collaboration can fulfill another promise to Bronzeville area residents.”

Throughout its first two years in business, the cafe will receive $350,000 in grant funding from the GMF to support its workforce training component. The long-term investment is aimed at “cultivating individual stability and employment” for years to come, the statement noted.

But the cafe will also have immediate impact, employing up to a dozen workers at the time of its opening. In addition to operating the counter-service establishment, employees will help run catering services for the building.

Hope Wernicke, a current workforce trainee, reflected positively on her experience in the program: “I have been able to push and work through challenges and big changes in my life that I’ve wanted to make for a long time because I have the support and love that I needed around me to show me that I had worth and that I was strong enough to change,” she said in a statement.

The cafe space will see further activation as a teaching kitchen for the MCW, providing students with instruction on how to incorporate lifestyle discussions into routine visits with patients, while encouraging them to set positive examples through their own healthy choices.

“Access to healthy food is a key social determinant of health,” said John R. Raymond, Sr. MD, the president and CEO of MCW, in a statement. “Addressing social determinants of health is fundamental to improving health outcomes and a crucial priority for ThriveOn Collaboration. The collaboration with Kinship aligns like-minded institutions and goals for the community.”

Programming will cover a wide range of topics, including a pediatric obesity education initiative in partnership with FoodRight, Kinship, and Children’s Wisconsin, where MCW students will learn to teach cooking skills and nutrition to students in Milwaukee schools.

Stuart Wong MD, professor of medicine and director of the MCW Center for Disease Prevention Research, will head up the teaching kitchen.

Partnered organizations began moving into ThriveOn earlier this year, and operations including JobsWork MKE, Versiti on King and Malaika Early Learning Center are now serving the community from the building’s first floor.

Gathering and wellness spaces are in use with availability set to expand as the building opens fully to the public, according to a news release. Construction continues on the residential portion of the development, aiming for completion in 2025.

For more information on the development, see Urban Milwaukee’s earlier coverage.

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