meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

301: Chad Houser—Give the Children Knives and Fire

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

History, Society & Culture

4.940.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 81 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Award-winning chef and bloody-do-gooder, Chad Houser explains why he gave up his successful restaurant to start Café Momentum, a nonprofit, fine dining restaurant that strives to break our country's cycle of incarceration and violence by employing justice-involved youths.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Well, you found it.

0:05.3

Episode number 301 of the way I heard it entitled Give the Children Knives and Fire.

0:13.6

Another direct quote, Chuck, from another fantastic guest.

0:17.4

Yeah.

0:18.1

Chad Hauser runs a foundation, Cafe Momentum. It's a foundation and it's also a restaurant.

0:24.5

An awarding restaurant. One of the best restaurants in Dallas. And he's one of the top chefs in Dallas.

0:30.6

So here's the deal. I met this guy, what, seven months ago at a stand-together event.

0:36.0

Stand-together, if you haven't heard, is an organization that supports my foundation,

0:40.9

micro-works, and lots and lots and lots of other organizations that try and work in bottom-up

0:47.2

solutions.

0:48.4

And this is a really good one.

0:50.2

Chad uses food.

0:52.2

I mean, he's an award-winning chef.

0:54.0

He had the number one restaurant in Dallas,

0:56.7

and he basically wakes up one morning and says,

0:58.9

look, I want to run a different kind of restaurant.

1:01.7

I want to hire juvenile delinquents.

1:05.2

I want to hire kids who are basically in the justice system code for in jail, basically, starts going into these detention halls and cooking with them.

1:21.1

And then he starts doing these pop-up dinners with them.

1:24.9

And then he eventually takes a giant breath and opens up this whole new

1:29.1

restaurant and starts hiring them. And then, and now he literally is on track to do this in like

1:36.9

30 different cities. He's got serious financial backing. He's got an amazing track record. I mean, I don't know, Chuck, if people

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.