Café Momentum, Nashville

Virgin Hotels Nashville, in partnership with Kind Traveler’s Every Stay Gives Back community impact certification, supports Café Momentum Nashville. 

The MISSION of Café Momentum Nashville is to transform young lives by equipping justice-involved youth with life skills, education, and employment opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. 

Why is it important?

Café Momentum is an award-winning restaurant and culinary training facility. They aim to transform young lives by equipping Nashville’s justice-involved youth with life skills, education and employment opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. In building Café Momentum, the primary goal is to create a sustainable model that provides justice-impacted youth (ages 15-19) with the holistic support they need to truly thrive. 

In 2020, a Momentum Advisory Collective was formed to scale the Momentum Model nationwide. As the parent company of Café Momentum and as a capacity-building nonprofit organization, their mission is to open new Café Momentum restaurants and programs offering living wages, culinary job training and holistic support to young people that have gone through the system.

How do they do it?

Working alongside the Juvenile Justice Department and local community partners, Café Momentum strives to teach our country’s youth that it is possible to break the cycle of incarceration and violence that many of our youth have faced. They focus on creating safe environments for youth ages 15-19, where they can gain self-confidence and learn marketable skills to ensure a more successful future.

Café Momentum is a nationally-recognized nonprofit restaurant and training program that provides a paid internship for justice-involved youth. The internship includes 12-months of curriculum programming.  It starts with a 6-day orientation period, at which time, the interns receive their ServSafe® certification.  The interns are paired with case managers to address basic urgent needs, establish a baseline of stability in their lives and set personal goals. The interns ultimately work their way through all areas of the restaurant, learning legal employment, social skills and life skills. Case management works to round out the ecosystem of support including; financial education, parenting classes, educational assistance and career exploration. These case managers help the interns work through issues such as anger management, trauma recovery, fatherlessness and abandonment. After the 12 months of curriculum, successful interns are able to graduate from the program and are placed in a job with one of our community partners. These young people, who the juvenile justice system has referred to as “throw-aways” are now employed, tax-paying, wholly contributing members of society.

How you can #TravelKindly: 

• Choose Café Momentum Nashville as your local charity when booking Virgin Hotel Nashville through Kind Traveler. 
• Be sure to check out the 5-part documentary, Building Momentum, which tells the story of Cafe Momentum founder Chad Houser’s efforts to provide resources, opportunities and wraparound care to justice-involved youth in his hometown of Dallas. The inspiring doc also showcases the ecosystem of support, including employment, education, community and mental health services as well as the life-changing impact of the Momentum model on Dallas’ most at-risk youth. The film can be found here 
• Check out a pop-up dinner at a local partner restaurant or any other such events in the Nashville area, including the Sunday Supper Concert Series
• The Community Services Center (CSC) increases Café Momentum’s impactful hours with interns while offering youth a safe place to study and recharge as they work toward their goals. If you would like to volunteer or donate items (supplies, snacks, etc.), please email us