N.J. inmate program serves up good food, job experience

(Gallery by John O'Boyle / The Star-Ledger)

By Ryan Hutchins/The Star-Ledger  -  February 18, 2013

TRENTON— Waiters in white shirts and maroon collars shuffle between the kitchen and dining room, running entrées while cooks clank away at their stations, finding a rhythm as the day grinds on — joking when they can, working hard when they must. There are regulars, folks who know all the servers and stop in every day or so, who bring their friends and insist you try the Wiener schnitzel. No, wait, the fisherman’s feast. Or maybe the rib eye. Yes, the rib eye.

But this eatery on the leafy outskirts of Trenton is no ordinary restaurant. That’s because of where its workers live: prison.

All the cooks, dishwashers, servers — everyone but the manager and a part-time assistant — reside at the minimum-security complex at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County, which houses inmates ages 18 to 30. They’ve committed crimes such as robbery and drug possession.

Mates Inn, as it is affectionately called, is a real restaurant run on self-generating revenues. Inside, golden wallpaper is framed by painted wood trim. There are windows with bright drapes and tables covered in cloth and topped with glass. It’s open for lunch and catering. Employees earn up to $7 per day, no tips allowed.

But it’s also a teaching laboratory on the campus of the state Department of Corrections headquarters. Based on the Delancey Street Restaurant in San Francisco, where former addicts and convicts study the culinary arts, Mates Inn is a place where prisoners can train and gain people skills in the months before release.

"We’re not creating chefs here. We’re giving them a work ethic — kitchen knowledge," said Joseph Klama, a corrections department teacher who has managed the restaurant for five years. "I want them to be able to navigate a kitchen safely and sensibly so that another chef can get a hold of them and make them something valuable in the kitchen."

Mates Inn, which opened in the 1970s and became a teaching program about 10 years ago, is the only operation of its kind in New Jersey. A similar restaurant at the Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility is not open to the public. There are no guards at Mates Inn, and officials say there’s never been an escape.

The stakes are high for such prison teaching programs, which are run with the goal of decreasing the likelihood inmates will repeat their crimes after being released.

Nearly 55 percent of prisoners who left the state’s correctional facilities in 2008 were arrested again within three years, according to a state study. More than a third ended up being sent back to prison. Those numbers are lower than national averages.

Staying out of jail has been a struggle for some of the prisoners who work at Mates Inn.

"I’ve got to stay away from the wrong crowd. Biggest downfall for me is hanging out with the wrong people," said Hakim Cherry, 24, a former Atlantic City drug dealer who was sent back to prison after he violated the conditions of his parole last year.

He’s been working at the restaurant for three weeks and has already climbed the ladder to second cook, helped by past work experience. Cherry said he never wants to return to a life of drugs.

"Maybe this will take me away from that environment, help me get a job in the casinos, or something like that," Cherry said last week. "I like to do this. I could see myself making a career out of it. Take the right steps to try to be successful in this field. It makes me happy to see a smile on someone’s face after they eat something that I made."

The Department of Corrections said it doesn’t have any studies showing how successful Mates Inn has been at keeping its graduates out of trouble.

Klama has heard on occasion from former inmates who went on to work in the culinary industry. One man became the food service director at a senior center, he said. Another student, who "swore he was never, ever going to use" his training, begrudgingly told Klama it was key to him turning his life around.

"He ended up going to school when he left here, got his degree in computer science," Klama said. "But when he did that, he worked in restaurants at night. That’s how he paid for his schooling."

Klama, who lives in Bordentown, said he’d like to be able to stay in touch with his students after they’re released, but that’s typically not allowed. Many who are paroled are told to have no contact with corrections employees as a condition of their release.

Cornell Brooks, president of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, who has dined at the restaurant, worries a lack of follow-through may mean some who would otherwise benefit from a program like Mates Inn could fall back to a life of crime. It’s tough enough to find a job without a criminal record, he said, suggesting the corrections department could lean on outside organizations to help follow up with inmates.

Longtime customers say they’re impressed by the inmates working the restaurant.

"I think it’s a terrific opportunity for these guys. I’m so happy they have it available to them," said Sue Scalia, a retired elementary school teacher from Yardley, Pa., who frequents the restaurant with her friends. "I feel you need to trust people and give them the opportunity to do the right thing. This provides that for them."

Qadir Treadwell is less than four months from being released from prison for the second time. The Paterson native is serving time for drug possession, and at 29, he hopes it will be his last time behind bars. But he’ll need to find work — maybe at a nursing home, where he has experience, or at a restaurant.

He said working with customers at the restaurant is helping him most as he prepares to return to the outside world.

"We get to interact with people. It helps us develop," he said, sitting down after the lunch crowd departed. "Because a lot of us had our guard up on the streets to where we wouldn’t interact with people. It helps us to … get to know people instead of walking around with a chip on our shoulders. It makes us a better person at the end of the day."

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