Curt’s Cafe Owner Hopes to Expand

Eighteen at-risk youth have graduated from Curt’s Café since it opened in 2012, receiving training from volunteer teachers and job experience working at the Evanston nonprofit restaurant. Founder Susan Treischmann keeps in touch with all of them.

They’ve found jobs at Starbucks, Home Depot, Office Depot and Marshalls. Sometimes they run into trouble, and when they do, Treishmann is there to help. “We open the door and sit and talk to them,” she said. “We’ll feed them and help them find safe housing. We’ll tutor them and mentor them – whatever they need. It’s not a cut and dry thing. We would never turn our back on anyone.”

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That’s true even when the problems are serious. “Two I’ve lost back to the system,” Treischmann said.

One student, Donzell Mintz, was charged with sex trafficking, news that shook everyone at Curt’s Café “The students were more upset than me, and I didn’t know that was even possible,” she said. “It made them all look that way. People were coming in thinking they were that way. It embarrassed all the kids here.  They felt they were thrown under the bus with him.”

Treischmann said she’s not sure if she’ll be able to bring Mintz back to Curt’s Café when he’s released, but she’s worried that no one else will be able to help him.

“He did something wrong, I don’t doubt that at all, but if you Google search him, that’s all that comes up,” she said. “We’ve screwed this kid to the ground. No matter what I do for him when he comes out, anyone who would help him would have to be a saint.”

But Treischmann was comforted by the response from her customers.

“Everybody came in the next day and made sure I was OK and that the students were OK because of the publicity,” she said. “I crawled in the door devastated and scared. I heard more than 100 times ‘You can’t help everyone. This isn’t a reflection on your program not working, this is a reflection on one kid not ready to change.’ They’ve been amazing. I couldn’t ask for anything better from the community.”

That support has been essential since Curt’s Café opened. She currently works with a full staff of volunteers including two tutors, four bakers, four social workers, a maintenance guy and four people that work the line when her student employees are in class.

“People just come in and see what we’re doing,” Treishmann said. “People see the students, they see the success here and a lot of people really want to help. We have way more volunteers than we have stuff for them to do. People are excited to do it.”

On the other hand, she also has more applicants looking to enroll in the program than she has spots.

“We’re moving people in as quickly as we can without violating the integrity of the program,” she said. “The idea of this café is we run through as many kids as we can help. If someone needs to stay for seven months, we let them. I’d rather build 30 great young people than build 100 half-assed.”

In order to help more people, she’s looking into opening a second location. She’d provide training for people to operate it using the same model as the Evanston space. She’s found a space in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, but needs to raise $50,000 to get it up and running.

She’s not sure how she’ll do that, but she recently received $10,000 for Curt’s Café as one of 10 honorees in L’Oreal’s Women of Worth competition. Treischmann didn’t even know she’d been nominated until she’d heard she was one of the top 30 of 4,000 entrants. While she didn’t earn enough votes to win the $25,000 grand prize, she’s grateful for the money she did receive. “It’s able to keep the program going and expand the program,” she said.