7 days ago
From pancakes to purpose: How a Dallas cafe is changing lives
It might be one of the best breakfast joints in Dallas you've never heard of, but the Hubcap Cafe does more than serve larger-than-life pancakes.
They change lives one meal at a time.
"We have the best pancakes in Dallas," said the CEO of the Dallas 24 Hour Club. "That will run you $2 including tax."
"It's the size of an actual hubcap," said the kitchen manager at the Hubcap Cafe, which serves the massive flapjacks.
The manager runs the kitchen and is an artist when it comes to making their famous pancake.
"You and your friend come in with only a dollar each. Both of you are going to eat and be full with just one pancake," he said.
They're well-known for big portions for little cash.
"It's down-home food, good food, and the portions—you can feed two people off any one plate off the menu," he said.
But the small cafe is probably better known for changing lives—lives like the kitchen manager's.
"Cooking has always been my passion. I always wanted to be a chef, I just never saw myself actually working in a kitchen with the choices I made in life," he said. "My day-to-day life before I was incarcerated was homeless, gambling, stealing, doing anything I could do to get money to survive, to find my next fix."
He was doing drugs every day and stealing to pay for it until he was arrested.
"I was facing 10 years," he said.
But a deal with the drug court allowed him to avoid some of the most severe consequences if he got clean.
That's when he found the Dallas 24 Hour Club.
"We provide transitional living, support services, and essential life skills for homeless alcoholics and addicts," said the CEO.
Some of the essential life skills the rehab facility provides are part of a job training program through their in-house restaurant, the Hubcap Cafe, where the kitchen manager was able to change his life in ways he could never imagine.
"You hear a lot of people say, you'll get your life back. I never had the life that I have now. It's beyond anything I could have ever imagined," he said.
Just a few years out of prison, he's sober and married with kids. And he's holding on to that new life, flipping pancakes and serving others who might just need a hot meal.
"I'm so grateful to the Dallas 24 Hour Club for giving me the opportunity to become who I was always destined to be," he said.
The Hubcap Cafe is open to the public, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., 365 days a year.
