Cheyenne Tyler is transforming young lives at Cafe Momentum (Personalities of Pittsburgh)

Cheyenne Tyler is the executive director of Cafe Momentum Pittsburgh, a unique nonprofit that doubles as a restaurant and provides teenagers caught up in the juvenile justice system the opportunity to learn and then work as cooks in a kitchen alongside its new chef, Robert “RC” Carter. A Pittsburgh native, Tyler spent time in Florida as a case manager for Youth Services International Inc. before returning to Pittsburgh in 2010 to get her master’s degree from Point Park University. Over the next decade, she worked for both Allegheny County and United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania before becoming Cafe Momentum Pittsburgh’s director of programs in 2022 and then stepping into the executive director role in 2024.

What stood out to you as most unexpected about working in the restaurant industry?

I definitely did dip and dabble as a teenager in the industry, but I think what surprises me the most now is really all of the practical skills that our young people learn in the restaurant industry that you really don’t truly think of until you align those things, like soft skills, communications and teamwork. They’re applicable and transferable skills that young people can learn here and apply to any career they want to learn. On the other end is how challenging it is to keep up with the trends in the restaurant world. It’s ever-changing, and there are new fads, so it’s how do we balance staying mission focused and staying relevant, providing great service and drawing a crowd.

How do you balance the nonprofit side with the restaurant side?

It’s two sides of the same coin. We want to exist in the nonprofit space as well as the restaurant space, so there is that balancing act that we continue to work toward on a regular and a daily basis. When we started off, we talked first about what our mission is and our mission is to transform the lives of young people impacted by the criminal justice system, and we do that through our vessel of an upscale restaurant.

You’ve spoken about how everyone makes mistakes as teenagers, but we don’t all face the same consequences. Could you elaborate on that?

One thing I’ll never forget as a case manager was a day where there was one young man of color and his counterpart was Caucasian. They went to different judges, and I said, “I’ll see you later” and he said, “no, you won’t.” I said, “why do you think I’m not going to see you?” He was like, “because I’m white.” I was a professional, an adult, and I thought, “this kid understands the system maybe more than anybody else does.” We’re all adolescents at a time and when you’re an adolescent, your brain is not fully developed, so your decision making and conflict resolution are not all developed. Everyone makes bad decisions, but the young people we serve, their bad decisions landed them in the juvenile justice system. It’s unfortunate that there are different standards and expectations of different people, and it is imperative that we, working and serving our young people, are able to inform and share those things.

With the disproportionate effect the criminal justice system has on Black men, do you feel as though your work is more prudent living in an era with federal attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion?

Yes, absolutely. Without a question. It has been imperative, and it is even more relevant now, and the other piece is to continue to educate our young people on it now, to continue to be that voice ensuring that we can prevent our young people from getting deeper into a system.

Gen Z is really struggling with an identity crisis, partly because of the disruption the pandemic caused. How has that impacted your program?

I think with our young people, there’s no real sense of community. The ones that we are serving now were in sixth and seventh grade when the pandemic hit, so there was the isolation, which becomes trauma. When health, social, educational and psychological needs are not being met, there is a trauma that exists there, and they turn to the internet and social media and Snapchat and all those things. These external influences really have caused an adultification as young people who don’t know how to identify themselves and don’t know forming an identity in part is exposure. So we ask, “how do we create a sense of community and how do we expose you to things you may or may not like? How do we open your eyes to let you know that there are more things out there, some you may love and some you may hate?”

People in the restaurant industry always say that food is a connecting tissue of the human experience. Do you have thoughts on that?

I once heard a gentleman say, “when you sit down at a table, you hear a story, share a story or start a story,” and that’s who we are as people, whenever we’re sitting down in a communal way with people, which is a treasure. Food connects people, and it also connects communities and shares different cultures. We sit down and break bread with our young people every day, not because they’re all hungry or facing food insecurity, but because it creates that communal feeling.

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ABOUT CHEYENNE TYLER:

Title: Executive director, Cafe Momentum Pittsburgh

Education: Bachelor’s, PennWest Clarion; master’s, Point Park University

First job: Auntie Anne’s Pretzels

Family: Husband Marc and two sons Marcellus and Cole

Hobbies: Traveling, playing cards, watching movies with the kids

Causes: Family, service to others, creating an environment for others to experience self worth and love

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DAY IN THE LIFE:

6:45 a.m.: I wake up, start getting ready, check emails and do the day’s calendar review. Then I get the boys up and dressed and have breakfast and coffee. I drop the boys off at school at 9:30. 

10 a.m.: I arrive at work and do staff rounds and check-ins.

5 p.m.: I pick up the kiddos.

6:30 p.m.: We eat dinner, and I prepare lunch for the boys for the next day. Then we enjoy a family game or TV show before bath and bed time, story time and prayers. After that, I load the dishwasher, straighten the house and iron clothes for tomorrow. 

10:30 p.m.: I take a shower and sleep.

Full article: https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2025/04/07/personalities-pittsburgh-cheyenne-tyler.html