Pittsburgh
Nonprofit Downtown restaurant finds momentum with new lunch service and dinner relaunch
March 5, 2025
Café Momentum Pittsburgh marked its second anniversary on March 1 and celebrated with a relaunch and a new lunch service a day prior.
The Market Square restaurant had a soft opening of that addition for two weeks. Plus a new executive chef, RC Carter, joined its team and helped create the menu for it.
The Pittsburgh restaurant is Café Momentum’s second location. The Dallas-based nonprofit founded by Chad Houser concentrates on helping justice-involved youth, ages 15 to 19, develop life skills and culinary training through paid internships.
Since its opened Café Momentum Pittsburgh has worked with 126 interns who have earned 53 restaurant industry certifications, according to a news release.
Carter had been Cioppino Restaurant and Cigar Bar’s executive chef for the past 10 years, starting first as sous chef. That Strip District restaurant and its sister location, Osteria, closed last year.
The lunch menu, he explained, is an adaption of Café Momentum Pittsburgh’s dinner offerings. All locations have a vegan dish, a handmade pasta, smoked fried chicken and biscuits. The chicken and the biscuits will be offered for lunch soon.
Farro and leek risotto is that vegan dish, which Carter said is very tasty. “You get a lot of the things you look for in a traditional entrée,” he explained. What makes it special is the creaminess of the celery root puree. It’s a trick he said he learned from one of his former chefs. “You use the cream liquid and extra virgin olive oil, [and] it creates a heavy emulsion like you have in a heavy cream.”
Other notable items on the menu – a mix of everyday favorites such as mac and cheese and margherita pizza to elevated entrees such as a blackened salmon a-l-t sandwich – includes the Momentum burger and baby back sticky ribs.
The burger, with a short rib and bacon herb sauce, white cheddar, caramelized onions and shredded lettuce, “is a homage to my former boss, Derek Stevens, and his 11 Burger.” Carter said the sweet sticky sesame barbecue sauce the ribs are braised in makes them “an excellent choice as smaller lunch entrée.”
Carter joined Café Momentum Pittsburgh just 2½ months ago, and he said the menu reflects the strong menu points the location developed from the dinner service it started with. The entrees reflect the less than 2-year-old equipment, which includes an open-hearth pizza oven, too.
Cory Hughes, a well-known Pittsburgh restaurateur and Fig & Ash proprietor who serves as Café Momentum’s culinary operations consultant, has been instrumental in the restaurant’s relaunch and lunch menu, according to the news release.
The interns have been servers, bussers, hosts and line workers during lunch.
Mark Brentley Jr., director of operations, works with those young people and said it is important that interns learn front- and back of the house work. Before moving on to six-week rotations through the restaurant’s nine stations, Café Momentum interns receive life skills support, employee adjustment and confidence-building assistance over eight weeks. The restaurant has a Learning Space classroom and a Community Service Center to accommodate the training. Plus, a Ninny’s Closet, named in honor of the founder’s mother, is stocked with toiletries, clothing and other items they might need during their time there, normally one year. Some finish earlier.
One aspect of the program Brentley pointed to is that the interns teach each other. “They shadow current working interns so they can get acclimated to the restaurant and the different stations. They see how the job is done,” he said.
Last fall the restaurant closed down to accommodate some construction work and prepare for this relaunch and addition. Brentley said that won’t happen again.
Senior Director of Development Danielle Grooms said Valentine’s Day sold out at the restaurant, and the lunch soft opening business was steady. “People found their way here,” she said.
Executive Director Cheyenne Tyler said the lunch menu is a tribute to the Café Momentum team, the partners – including its vendors, half of which are local – and patrons who support the mission. “We’re serving dishes with a purpose, knowing that just one meal and one person can make a difference in our community,” she said in the news release.
One other item on the dinner menu may also be added for lunch patrons: a dessert. “We may add a sweet treat,” Carter said. “There’s always room for a 2.1 or even a 2.0 [lunch menu].”
Café Momentum Pittsburgh, 268 Forbes Ave., serves lunch Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Dinner service is Thursday through Saturday from 5-9 p.m. Reservations can be made online or by calling 412-315-7765.