Tricklebee Cafe Seeks To Make Healthy Eating, LIfestyle Accessible To All

Good, healthy food can be expensive, even for those with a decent job. Fast food and processed foods are not only more convenient but also more affordable to many. So-called food deserts, areas in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food, are unfortunately something Milwaukee has to contend with. A new restaurant opening this month in Milwaukee seeks to solve that problem for one neighborhood. Tricklebee Cafe is a new restaurant, run by Rev. Christie Melby-Gibbons, that follows the pay-what-you-can (PWYC) philosophy as a member of the One World Everybody Eats organization. In a PWYC business, a sliding scale of prices for products or services allows for people who are better off to pay higher prices to cover for lower prices paid for by those with lower income.

88.9 RadioMilwaukee featured the cafe in a This Bites feature, and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service has a story about the Cafe that talks about how the restaurant will operate - for example suggested donations for meals are between $5.69 and $6.46 with the lower end covering the costs and the upper end providing the extra needed to sustain the business and organization. Patrons can even volunteer in exchange for meals, the very act of volunteering also providing experience that may help them get a job elsewhere.

Tricklebee Café's mission is to be 'a pay-what-you-can community cafe that offers healthy meals, food-service training, and spiritual nourishment' and was founded by its owners to be place for people in the greater Washington Park area of Milwaukee to gather and enjoy delicious, nutritious, local, creatively-prepared food and drink. One way they will do this is by paying the same, living wage of $14.35 to all employees: including management.

One of the great things about the restaurant is that the food is all as sustainable and healthy as possible, using local, healthy, seasonal ingredients. Tricklebee "will rely on the seasonal harvests of local farmers, beekeepers, and gardeners to constitute its menu. We recognize the importance of offering real food to all, especially in areas like ours where mostly corner store "food" is available or affordable." They also offer different portion sizes so that you order as much as you will eat, encouraging proper portion sizes and reducing waste as well.

Besides being a restaurant, the Cafe seeks to be a cornerstone of the community offering space for groups to meet, activities for children such as a play-kitchen, and of course there is the volunteer aspect. Besides volunteering for meals they need volunteers for all aspects of running the cafe.

We welcome Tricklebee Cafe to Milwaukee and hope they will be success and an inspiration to similar PWYC businesses.