Kristin Fox-Trautman (left) with her Inspire Community Cafe coworkers

Inspire Community Café: Rice bowls, strawberry fields, and breakfast all day

Inspire Community Café: Empowering people, business, and community

In March 2020, when coronavirus changed everything, Inspire Community Cafe closed. Inspire reopened last summer, but Kristin Fox-Trautman’s right-sized business adjusting to numerous health directives while honoring her commitment to pay employees a living wage.

The atmosphere at Inspire Community Café is, in a word, welcoming. In fact, the word “welcome” is written in different languages across the top of the massive chalkboard inside, including “Bienvenidos,” which is recognized in Spanish.

Friends enjoy conversation over a cup of cappuccino, co-workers eat lunch, a college student studies over her laptop and two women sit in comfy armchairs while children played with building blocks on the carpeted play area at the front of the cafe.

Kristin is the founder of the new Inspire Community Café. Located in the Binghamton Gateway Center strip mall at Sam Cooper Boulevard and Tillman Street, Inspire Community Café is just what the name says — a cafe designed for the community.

“It is a place for people to connect and collaborate,” Fox-Trautman said. “It’s also about our team.” Fox-Trautman has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 20 years, focusing on youth and young development.

“I love this city,” she said. “I have gotten to know the awesomeness of Memphis, as well as the high level of poverty and economic injustice. In creating a business, we wanted to do something good for ourselves and our families, as well as the community.”

The team behind the cafe is a group of men and women Kristin has known since they were young, many as long as 20 years. They view each other as family.

“We have a close relationship,” she said. “Our love and connection for each other is a vibe people will feel when they come here.”

Binghamton is one of Memphis’ impoverished communities with more than 30% of its community living below the poverty level. Kristin’s employees are part of her family and forward-thinking, inclusive business model — they are paid a living wage, included in business decisions, participants in profit sharing, and fully engaged in the development and growth of the business model. Kristin is working to beat the odds and proving that we can all be a vessel of life-giving hope through an inspiring and groundbreaking business model.

The space is small but comfortable. Hand-crafted tables made from pallets are adorned with a simple vase of flowers. The environmentally sustainable tables were made by the team in conjunction with Frayser-based nonprofit Arkwings. The walls are decorated with paintings made by the youth in the Binghampton neighborhood. The artwork came from a partnership with the Carpenter Art Garden, a neighborhood after-school program just down the street.

Each month, Inspire Community Café is partners with a different nonprofit organization.

“We will choose people and groups we have known personally and believe in what they are doing,” Kristin said. “We will share 10 percent to support their mission, as well as let them use our cafe to promote their work. We want them to activate the space.”

The cafe also will sell merchandise from its various community partners, everything from T-shirts from Playback Memphis to food items like Thistle & Bee’s granola.

For Kristin, it’s all about adjusting to the needs of her community during the COVID-19 pandemic recession.

“We definitely hear from our regulars that they miss being in the space,” she said. “Just being that resource of a gathering place. There is sadness for that. We know it’s temporary. Everybody is doing the best that they can … We were able to share the gift of food that is serving our community during this time.”

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