Table For Six Billion, Please

Judy Wicks On Her Plan To Change The World, One Restaurant At A Time

In 1983 Judy Wicks was living in a Philadelphia brownstone that she’d fought to save from mall developers in the 1970s — even committing civil disobedience at one point by lying down in front of a bulldozer. For ten years she’d been the manager and co-proprietor of Restaurant La Terrasse, but she wanted to own her own business, so she opened a neighborhood coffee-and-muffin shop on her brownstone’s first floor, which allowed her the added benefit of being closer to her young children. Employees washed dishes in a sink in the corner of the dining room, and customers used a restroom upstairs in her home. The business took off, and Wicks turned it into a full-fledged restaurant, adding a kitchen in the basement and expanding into the brownstone next door. She called it the White Dog Cafe.

Since then, the White Dog Cafe has developed a national reputation for its award-winning fare and leadership in the local-food movement. Wicks buys all the restaurant’s produce in season from local organic family farms, all its meat and poultry from humane sources, and all its seafood from sustainable fisheries. When purchasing products that must be imported, such as coffee, she follows the principles of fair trade. The White Dog’s employees all earn a living wage (entry-level positions pay nine dollars an hour) and receive benefits such as health insurance, a matched retirement account, and paid holidays and vacations, a rare policy in the restaurant industry. A few years ago Inc. magazine named Wicks one of its favorite businesswomen, because she put into place “more progressive business practices per square foot than any other entrepreneur.”

Not satisfied with just running the restaurant according to her principles, Wicks has become a dedicated activist working to advance a greener, more sustainable economic system, with the ultimate goal of replacing corporate globalization with a worldwide network of local economies. She openly shares the secrets of the White Dog’s success with other restaurants that want to serve local cuisine, and the cafe doubles as a center for community activism, hosting speakers, storytelling sessions, and film series. Through her international “sister-restaurant” project — in which the cafe nurtures relationships with restaurants around the globe — Wicks has brought her customers to Nicaragua, Cuba, Vietnam, Israel, and Palestine, where they learn about other cultures and the effects of U.S. foreign policy. She also runs another sister-restaurant program that promotes minority-owned restaurants in Philadelphia. Wicks is the mother of two, and her daughter directs the cafe’s community programs.

A thirteenth-generation North American (her ancestors arrived here in 1635), Wicks grew up in the politically conservative town of Ingomar, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles north of Pittsburgh, and attended a small women’s college in the Midwest. In 1970, after a pivotal experience living in an Alaskan Eskimo village and working as a vista volunteer, she moved to Philadelphia at the age of twenty-three and cofounded her first business, a clothing-and-housewares store for the under-thirty crowd, called the Free People’s Store.

In addition to her for-profit endeavors, Wicks has founded two nonprofits — White Dog Community Enterprises, and the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia — as well as cofounded the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (balle). Wicks defines a “living economy” as one that promotes healthy natural life and vibrant community life, while supporting long-term economic vitality. Community wealth and self-reliance are built, she says, by producing necessities — such as food, energy, and clothing — as locally as possible. Her integrity, articulateness, and vision have made her a leader, and she travels extensively to spread the gospel of localism to groups around the nation and world. She is currently working on a book about the living-economy movement, Good Morning, Beautiful Business, to be published by Chelsea Green in 2009. She is also coauthor of The White Dog Cafe Cookbook (Running Press).

In person, Wicks’s enthusiasm and energy are impressive. Whether she’s being candidly self-reflective or speaking passionately about localism, her pioneering character shines through.

Kupfer: What challenges have you faced as a woman in business?

Wicks: For the most part I think being a woman has helped me. The only time it was a barrier was when I was first managing a restaurant, back in 1974. I was only twenty-seven, and a lot of vendors wouldn’t take me seriously. “Let me talk to the real boss,” they’d say, and I had to keep repeating, “I’m the boss.” Even now, once in a while, someone will ask me where my husband is. They just assume that because I’m a woman, I don’t run the business by myself.

I’ve been a businesswoman my whole adult life. I started my first business, a store, when I was twenty-three. The thing about business is that you have to make ends meet; you can’t just do whatever you want to do. So there’s a certain grounding to it that I like. I’ve dabbled in nonprofit work, but it doesn’t have the same energy. There’s something about being able to make money doing what you love. I never had any interest in money growing up, but after I started a business, I took an evening class in accounting at the Wharton business school. I enjoyed learning about the balance sheet and the income statement. Women of my generation weren’t encouraged to take business classes; they weren’t even offered at the women’s college I attended. Luckily for me, I had an instinct for how to come up with a product that people like.

Kupfer: The goal of traditional investment strategy is to maximize profits. Why are you working to change that?

Wicks: One reason that many people want a high return on their investment is that they’re afraid of not having enough money when they’re old. In indigenous societies, security in old age comes from the wealth of the community, not from individual income. If we felt secure in our communities, we wouldn’t be afraid of how we might end up. But our society often does not include elderly people in the community. We marginalize them. It’s no wonder we’re all afraid of being old and penniless. What could be worse in our society?

The alternative to the stock market is investing your money in your own community so that you receive a modest financial return and also a “living return,” which is the benefit of living in a more sustainable local economy and a healthier community. I made the decision to take all my money out of the stock market and put it into Philadelphia’s Reinvestment Fund. I get a straight financial return of between 4.5 and 5.5 percent, and the money I invest also benefits my community. For instance, it helped to finance the wind turbines that produce the electricity the White Dog Cafe buys. Money invested in the stock market, on the other hand, is just taken out of the community.

We’re taught that we’re suckers if we don’t make the highest profit or pay the lowest price. If you invest where you don’t make as much money, then you’re a loser. There’s no thought given to the effect our financial decisions have on the long-term well-being of our communities.

Kupfer: Has the notion of a living return caught on?

Wicks: Many people have been moving their money into socially responsible investment funds, which avoid investing in businesses that damage the environment and exploit workers. It was originally thought that you would get less return from these screened funds, but it hasn’t turned out that way, which shows that sustainable companies can be profitable. I see this as a first step toward community reinvestment, because it shows a growing mindfulness about the effects of investing. Community reinvestment is growing — the Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia is constantly getting new investors — but not every city or town has such a financial vehicle. We need more local banks, credit unions, and funds that keep our investments in our community.

Kupfer: So far community reinvestment does mean lower returns. How do you convince people that it’s in their best interest to accept less financial gain in exchange for this living return?

Wicks: Investing in your community is in your self-interest. You’re investing in businesses that don’t pollute the air you breathe, and clean air is as much a benefit as monetary payback. I believe I get a more reliable return on my investments this way, because sometimes the stock market loses money. I feel confident that I’ll come out better in the long run than my friends who have invested in the stock market, and at the same time, I’ll be benefiting my community. So it’s not necessarily a sacrifice to invest locally and responsibly.

Also we should invest in enterprises we want to see grow. Do we want businesses that are beneficial to life, or ones that are harmful?

If your community does not have a reinvestment fund, you can put your money into a credit union or local bank, or invest in funds that benefit other communities around the world; they often let you earmark your investment for a particular region.

Kupfer: Is the movement for local economies connected to the antiwar movement?

Wicks: In a way. Wars are often fought over access to basic needs like energy, food, and water. Helping every region achieve food security, energy security, and water security builds the foundation for world peace. Self-reliant societies are less likely to start wars than those dependent on long-distance shipments of oil, water, or food.

I once had a dream of going into a restaurant and instead of asking for a table for two, I said, “Table for 5 billion, please.” Now it’s 6 billion and growing. That dream was a vision of a world where everyone has a place at the table, politically and economically, and enough to eat. We can accomplish this not through economic and military domination, but by communication and understanding. My dream was the inspiration for our sister-restaurant program, which I started in the 1980s with a trip to Nicaragua. The United States was fueling the civil war there by arming the Contra rebels against the left-wing Sandinista government. I wasn’t sure how I felt about what was going on. President Reagan was calling the Contras “freedom fighters” and the Sandinistas “communists.” I was very anticommunist. I come from a small-town Republican family and grew up thinking that we are the good guys and the communists are the bad guys. The Vietnam War had caused me to question that, but I had faith that Vietnam was just an aberration.

When I went down to Nicaragua with a group of my customers and saw what the Contras were up to, I was heartbroken. I met a woman whose nine-year-old son had been killed when his school had been hit with a U.S.-made rocket, and another whose daughter had been kidnapped by the Contras to work as a slave. On the way home, I was switching planes in Miami, Florida, and I saw headlines about people wanting Ollie North to run for president. This was during the Iran-Contra scandal, and North, a marine lieutenant colonel and Reagan-administration official, was accused of selling arms illegally to Iranians and using the proceeds to help fund the Contras. I just couldn’t believe it. I sat down and started crying. I wasn’t crying for the Nicaraguans. I was crying for the United States. I was crying for the loss of the country I’d loved. I realized then that the U.S. government was in Central America for the same reason we’d been in Southeast Asia: to protect corporate access to cheap labor and natural resources. We say we’re spreading democracy and freedom, but it’s just the opposite.

At that point I committed myself to helping other Americans understand the motives behind our country’s foreign policy. We have brought the White Dog’s customers to Vietnam, Cuba, the Soviet Union, El Salvador, and Mexico. Our nickname for the program is “Eating with the Enemy.” We’ve dined with the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas and the Zapatistas and the Palestinians. When you sit down at the table together and recognize the other’s humanity, it makes you wonder why you ever saw them as an enemy.

Kupfer: What exactly is a “local living economy”?

Wicks: It’s an economy in which basic needs are produced close to home in ways that are sustainable and don’t harm the environment. This requires a cooperative mentality, because there’s no such thing as a stand-alone sustainable business — it must be part of a sustainable system. Individuals, or individual businesses, can’t provide for all our basic needs by themselves. We need a local food system, a local energy system, local clothing manufacturing, and green building methods. In the face of climate change and peak oil, our survival depends on community self-reliance.

In local living economies, goods we can’t produce at home, such as coffee or sugar or bananas, are traded for fairly, so that the exchange benefits both our community and the community where those products originate. We can still have a global economy, but it will be a network of thousands of sustainable local economies that trade in products that improve our quality of life. If we create products that are unique to our region — whether it’s a style of clothing, a type of cheese or wine, or a unique invention — they’ll be sought after in the global marketplace. So this movement is not anti-trade or antiglobalization; it’s about creating security at home and not depending on foreign trade for our basic needs.

Kupfer: Your work seems centered around community development.

Wicks: It’s certainly what the White Dog Cafe is all about. Ultimately, everything I do — whether it’s international or local — is aimed at building community. Business relationships were once the basis of our communities. I grew up in a small town where you knew all your local merchants and everybody hung out down at the drugstore. After my dad retired, he used to go down there every morning. On Saturdays, the men in our town would sit on the front steps of the local hardware store, before it was torn down. And at the local butcher shop, the butcher would ask my grandmother and mother, “How was your turkey on Thanksgiving?” or, “How was that steak last Saturday night?” My parents had direct relationships with local businesspeople. But that became lost over time. I can remember when the mall was built between Pittsburgh and my small town. It was one of the first malls in the country. When I was a teenager it was a big deal to walk around the mall, and we thought the chain stores were cool.

Kupfer: Back then, mall development seemed like progress.

Wicks: Yes, but that’s not the case now. In fact, I think there’s a longing for those community business relationships. Through our Sustainable Business Network in Philadelphia, we’re re-creating that feeling of community and trust that I felt growing up in my hometown.

Kupfer: What did you learn from living with Eskimo villagers as a vista volunteer back in 1969?

Wicks: The most important lesson was the indigenous philosophy of interconnectedness: how the survival of the individual depends on the survival of the whole group. This promotes cooperation and sharing.

I was also impressed with the natives’ resourcefulness and ingenuity, how every little scrap was saved and used in some way. When I went fishing with some Eskimo women, they made hooks out of safety pins and used fish eyeballs as bait. I saw an Eskimo man take apart a motor and put all the parts on the snow. Once he’d found the part that was broken, he fashioned a replacement out of bone, because he didn’t have access to a new part.

The other thing that struck me was the impact of our culture on the indigenous people who had never been out of the area. Watching Hollywood movies had caused many to feel ashamed of their own way of life. Once, my grandmother mailed me a package, and some teenage Eskimo girls came home with me to see what was in the box. I opened it and lifted out a pair of shiny pink satin slippers. The girls all oohed and aahed, but I said, “I can’t wear these here,” and I put them aside. The girls looked disappointed. I think they thought I meant that they didn’t have a nice-enough place for me to wear the shoes — that their village wasn’t good enough for the pretty slippers. I felt just the opposite: I admired their way of life and was embarrassed by my own culture. But it’s hard to convince people who haven’t had luxuries that they’re better off without them.

While I was there, I saw a materialistic way of life coming to the village, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, because it was so seductive. I saw the same thing years later when I traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time. The Soviets would display the wrappers from store-bought goods in their china cupboards; they had so little that they even adored the packaging. Many of the changes that occurred in the Soviet Union came from their desire to have not our freedoms but our stuff.

The question is: Can we warn people in developing countries, or do they have the right to spend and accumulate and waste as we have until they have an awakening about how consumerism hurts the earth? (Not that we have had such an awakening yet in our own culture.) The Chinese and the Indians want cars. But if they get them — and big houses, and fashions, and so on — it will have a catastrophic effect on the environment.

Kupfer: How has that experience in Alaska affected your work today as an activist and businesswoman?

Wicks: It helped me see that a sustainable economy, which the Eskimos have had for thousands of years, is based on sharing and cooperation. The business world needs to move away from a mentality of accumulation and competition. I’m working through balle to build a new economy that’s mindful of the consequences our business decisions have on other people and the environment.

It also made me realize how seductive consumerism is. The lifestyle of the young people in the Eskimo village — particularly the girls — was changing before my eyes from a sustainable one to a wasteful, consumer-based one. Living in their village made me realize how much women in our society — including me — are affected by advertisements and tv; how we’re made to feel we’re not good enough, not feminine enough. We all buy things to make us feel more beautiful, if we’re women, or more handsome and powerful, if we’re men.

I’m trying to change my own consumer behavior. Just today I was at a conference, and there was a woman selling beautiful silk tops. I thought, I bet I’d look really good in this. Then I found out they were made in China. In my mind the old argument played out: I would look great in this versus This is made in China. I don’t even need it. My closet is full. I realized that I’m still conditioned to consume; it’s a struggle for me to act mindfully and not compulsively in areas like eating, drinking, and shopping. For all my social organizing and trying to bring about change in the business world, it’s easy to forget that real change begins with changing oneself.

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