For years, a vacant building at the corner of Alton Park Boulevard and 38th Street offered a less-than-encouraging advertisement for investment in South Chattanooga.
Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly says he remembers a large “free rent” sign posted outside the property – and the fact that even that offer wasn’t enough to fill it.
The sight stuck with him.
“I began to get the idea to run for mayor of Chattanooga seven years ago,” he says. “This location was one of the things that haunted me and caused me to do it.”
The building is empty no longer.
Cocoa Cafe has opened its doors as a full-service restaurant, community gathering place and home for an initiative designed to help food entrepreneurs build their businesses.
Cocoa Cafe is a nonprofit cafe operated by the Net Resource Foundation. It serves breakfast, lunch, coffee and specialty beverages 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday, but those behind the project say its ambitions extend well beyond what’s on the menu.
“This project has always been about more than opening a cafe,” says Raquetta Dotley, executive director of Cocoa Cafe and the Net Resource Foundation. “It’s about investing in South Chattanooga, creating opportunities, bringing people together and demonstrating what’s possible when growth happens from within the community.”
For Anthony Wiley, CEO and cofounder of Welcome to Today, the opening carries particular meaning.
Wiley grew up in Alton Park and describes himself as a third-generation “Alton Parkian.” He remembers three things that told him he was home whenever he entered the neighborhood.
There were the foundries and warehouses that served as reminders of the area’s industrial history. There was the distinctive smell that came with them. (“If you know, you know,” Wiley says.) And there was the Big H, where he and his brother stopped for snacks when they visited their grandfather Pete.
Those memories provided the backdrop for what Wiley believes the opening of Cocoa Cafe represents.
“We’re celebrating not only revitalization but also the beginning of building for a community that has gone through decades of underinvestment.”
That process, Wiley says, must include the people who already call the neighborhood home.
“We’re creating jobs, expanding economic opportunity, generating new ideas and reimagining what a community can look like,” he says. “Growth cannot happen without including the people who call it home.”
Roots in the community
The roots of Cocoa Cafe extend to West Side Baptist Church, which has served the area for more than 80 years.
The Net Resource Foundation was founded by former West Side pastor Rev. Timothy Caruthers and church members as a way to extend the church’s work beyond its walls, current pastor Rev. George Maize says.
The foundation has served South Chattanooga since 2015 through mentorship, education and community development programs. Cocoa Cafe represents a different approach to the same mission: using a business, gathering space and support for entrepreneurs as tools for community development.
“Programs and services matter, but so do economic opportunity, entrepreneurship and investment,” says Damien Vinson, member of the Net Resource Foundation board. “Cocoa Cafe is one way we’re putting that belief into action.”
Getting from the idea to opening day was a yearslong undertaking.
Dotley recalls the fundraising, meetings, delays and repeated problem-solving that went into transforming the vacant property.
“When you work on something for years – talking about it, praying about it, raising money, holding countless meetings, experiencing delays and solving one problem after another – you spend so much time trying to reach the finish line that you don’t always think about what it will feel like when you get there,” she says.
“And today, we’re here. Cocoa Cafe is officially open.”
Bringing the project to that point required support from public, philanthropic, business, faith and community partners. Sponsors included Sommerville Cottages, the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, the Greater Chattanooga Sankofa Fund for Civic Engagement, TuckerBuild, and Rev. Dr. Glenn and Cora Taylor.
More than a cafe
The restaurant is only one component of the project.
Cocoa Cafe is working with Launch Chattanooga on a kitchen incubator intended to give aspiring and early-stage culinary entrepreneurs access to facilities, education and support that can otherwise present a substantial hurdle to starting and growing a food business.
In addition to commercial kitchen space and equipment, the incubator is designed to provide entrepreneurs with resources and mentorship and will offer workshops through Launch Chattanooga and the kitchen incubator program.
It can serve food truck owners needing commissary and storage space; caterers, bakers and distributors needing a licensed kitchen; and small businesses looking for opportunities to sell their products through pop-ups and food truck markets.
The facility includes commercial ovens and stovetops, fryers, grills and mixers, along with dry, cold and frozen storage. It also includes a licensed food truck commissary.
The cafe also plans to feature a rotating chef for six months at a time.
“We create wealth through entrepreneurship,” Kelly says. “Workforce development is a huge part of what we’re trying to do in the city, but ultimately, it’s about creating opportunities for people to build businesses and wealth.”
The cafe is also intended to function as a place for people to gather. Its space will be available for community events and private rentals during evenings and weekends.
That combination is reflected in Cocoa Cafe’s tagline: “Coffee. Culture. Community.”
Investing from within
The project’s backers aren’t shy about attaching larger hopes to what is, on its surface, a neighborhood cafe.
Vinson says revitalization should be measured by more than improvements to buildings and streets.
“Revitalization isn’t simply about changing what a neighborhood looks like, but expanding what’s possible for the people who call it home,” he says.
For Kelly, the transformation of a building he once saw sitting empty has made the opening particularly meaningful.
“The deeper I dug into the data on the difference in income and wealth between the Black and white communities in Chattanooga, the more it bothered me,” Kelly says. “So to see this location finally become a symbol of hope in this community – which environmentally and economically is one of the most disinvested in our city – is an honor.”
For Dotley, Cocoa Cafe represents another idea: that investment in South Chattanooga doesn’t always have to arrive from somewhere else.
“We don’t have to wait for someone else to invest in South Chattanooga,” she says. “We can invest in ourselves, create our own opportunities and show what’s possible when a community comes together.”
After years spent trying to get Cocoa Cafe open, Dotley is now asking the community to help determine what happens next.
“Bring someone,” she says. “Hold a meeting at the cafe. Buy coffee or a meal. Support its employees and the entrepreneurs who use its facilities.
“Today isn’t the end of the project. It’s the beginning of what comes next.”