Initial Proposal

Possible Proposal 1:  The White Dog Cafe

Source: Balle Case Study of Successful Localist Businesses

Background: A restaurant in Philly that has been selling fresh, locally produced food for 25 years now. Products are affordable. They also have, “a steady stream of “table talks,” educational tours, and street festivals”. The owner, Judy, focuses more on relationships as opposed to the money. Money is more of a tool, from her perspective. When she says that she feels close with her community she is not stretching far from the truth, as she lives right above her own business and interacts with the customers on a business level and on a community level as well.

Terms:

Space of Association

Space of Dependence

Use Value

 

Questions:

Does my article/piece advocate anything besides market value?

Does my localist movement share anything with any of the four localizations?

https://bealocalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/balle-case-studies_whitedog_december2014.pdf (Links to an external site.)

 

Possible Proposal 2: Graeme Connors – Living Off the Land

Source: Youtube

Background: The song is about a man who has lived in a place for time, just as his father and father’s father had. He lives off of the land and is very hopeful of its growth and stability.

 

Terms:

“Back to the land”

Space of dependence

Post keynesian neoliberalism

 

Questions:

Does my localist movement share anything with any of the four localizations?

What scales are being use?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy32QX5dCM8 (Links to an external site.)

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Comments:

Hi Gabby, The first topic seems viable to me. We talked in class about ensuring that you have rich archival detail. It looked like you had a website at least. Ideally, you’ll gather more information as well. Collecting social media profiles, perhaps even emailing the owner questions…there’s a lot of way to get more info. I suspect you’ll be OK, but we should probably check in next week about the pile of evidence you’re gathering. You also seem to have Hess as a good starting point for building an interpretive framework. You might build on that by looking up information about the broader farm-to-table movement. You can find information about that in sustainability scholarship, in business marketing scholarship, and a host of other contexts.

Second Proposal (First Revised)

Topic:

My second project will be an examination of a localist business, The White Dog Cafe. A restaurant in Philly, The White Dog Cafe, unlike the majority of city food vendors, resists the industrial food system and gives rise to a local food system. The owner of the local restaurant, Judy, has been preparing meals made with freshly and locally produced foods from nearing farms for 25 years now. This process deems this Philly restaurant to be a “farm to table” localist movement. She concurrently maintains the local economy and environmental sustainability by using sustainable farming and harvesting practices.

 

Archive:

For lack of concreteness, my archive is currently a combination of The White Dog Cafe restaurant website and a text from the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies Company about the restaurant and it’s owner written by Michael Shuman.

– use value/social value

– space of dependence

– local system/local economy

– local environment sustainability

 

https://bealocalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/balle-case-studies_whitedog_december2014.pdf (Links to an external site.)

http://www.whitedog.com/our-story/ (Links to an external site.)

 

Conversation:

I will consider the guide, Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, Secure Food Systems and Tack-Check Your Plate for my examination. The Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, Secure Food Systems is a novel that promotes and strategies “community resilience”. The book discusses environmental efficiency and safety throughout the production/growing period. The text also reestablishes what are food system is, educates people about the food supply and introduces them to new ways to obtain nutritional value (something that many households and that industrially produced foods lack). The second source, Tact-Check Your Plate is an article by Laura Reily that explains how to determine the credibility of “farm to table” restaurants by closely analyzing and comprehending the prices, seasonality and the food harvesting practices. I plan for these two sources to aid me in my inquiry of the social vs market value of The White Dog Cafe/

 

Question:

To what extent does my particular piece advocate the “Back to Land” localization movement?

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Comments:

Any sense of whether or not you’ll use course readings in your conversation? Two of the three books you mention (they are books, right) sound useful, based on the titles. Perhaps Tack-Check is also useful, but I can’t tell what it’s about. You might add a question about whether or not your organization empowers the local community as well…that seems related to the conversation you’re building. It might bring Hess into your discussion as well.

Bibliography and Updated Proposal:

Update Proposal / Bibliography 2

 

Archive:

 

R., Shay, Crystal L., Megan H., Tiffany S., Niecee R., Jon S., Brianna B., Ali S., Simon B., June

L., Lina H., Leyla A., Olivia H., Jessica A., Christina S., Sophia H., Monica P., Erica M.,

Alice P., and Nicholas Y. “White Dog Cafe – University City – Philadelphia, PA.” Yelp. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

This is a collection of public responses towards the white dog cafe. I plan to digest the restaurant goers’ responses to see the validity of the owner’s claims of social value.

 

Shuman, Michael. “Making The Case For Localism: Case Studies of Successful Local

Businesses.” Business Economy for Local Living Economies. N.p., n.d. Web. 06

Oct. 2016.

This is a case study made that presents one localist business, The White Dog Cafe, and it’s owner. It covers the strategic and fundamental principles of the business, as well as provides essential background about the business its community.

 

“Welcome to the White Dog Cafe.” Restaurants in Wayne and Haverford: Main Line 

Restaurants. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

This is the restaurant’s official website which contains the business’s back story, local relationships, and sustainable methods.

 

Wolszczan, Maggie, and Theresa Pezzano Halpin. “Places.” White Dog Cafe. N.p., n.d. Web. 10

Oct. 2016.

This source is actually The White Dog Cafe’s Facebook website where posts or news about the restaurant uprise.

 

 

Conversation:

Ackerman-Leist, Philip. Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, 

and Secure Food Systems. Santa Rosa, CA: Post Carbon Institute, 2013. Print.

 

The book discusses environmental efficiency and safety throughout the production/growing period. The text also reestablishes what are food system is, educates people about the food supply and introduces them to new ways to obtain nutritional value (something that many households and that industrially produced foods lack).

 

Herman, Valli. “The Farm-to-table Backlash Is Here.” Fortune The Farmtotable Backlash Is 

Here Comments. N.p., 27 Sept. 2015. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

This source is a review from Fortune that critiques the concept of Farm to Table and how often the movement is dangerous or misleading.

 

Reiley, Laura. “At Tampa Bay Farm-to-table Restaurants, You’re Being Fed Fiction.” Tampa Bay, 

Florida News. N.p., 13 Apr. 2016. Web. 07 Oct. 2016.

Reiley critiques the Farm to Table movement and brings uprise to the common falsified claims that restaurants make about the origin of their foods.

 

REILEY L. TACT-CHECK YOUR PLATE. Rodale’s Organic Life [serial online]. September

2016;2(5):56. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed

October 7, 2016.

Tact-Check Your Plate is an article by Laura Reiley that explains how to determine the credibility of “farm to table” restaurants by closely analyzing and comprehending the prices, seasonality and the food harvesting practices.

 

Toovey, Diane. “How to Make Farm-to-Table A Truly Sustainable Movement.” Yale 

Environment 360. N.p., 15 Sept. 2014. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

This is an interview where a local restaurant owner critiques his restaurant’s level food sustainability. It includes a podcast that overviews what makes a menu sustainable.

 

Wilbur, Andrew. “Cultivating Back-To-The-Landers: Networks Of Knowledge In Rural Northern

Italy.” Sociologia Ruralis 54.2 (2014): 167-185. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10

Oct. 2016.

This source overviews the living conditions of an Italian society and showcases their strategies used to transition to a “back to land” agrarian lifestyle.

 

 

Question:

To what extent does my particular piece advocate the “Back to Land” localization movement? In my research, I aim to thoroughly grade The White Dog Cafe. I aim to define what makes a successful localist movement and business; through customer feedback, interviews and readings about the farm to table movement, I can more accurately come to a conclusion.

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Comments:

Patrick O'Neill: Research question: How have the relationships between the white dog cafe and the surrounding community perpetuated values or sustainability and high social value?

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Your question is clearly stated here. You’re basically asking what was the role of The White Dog Café and its relationships in developing sustainability and a high social value.

Patrick O'Neill: Motive: to see how relationships affect business success

Patrick O'Neill: reader accommodation- assumes we know about Hess and his scholarship

Patrick O'Neill: conceptual framework: Use/Social Value, Market/Exchange Value. Back to the land -> farm to table.

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: You’re accommodating your audience well in this paragraph by explaining key terms that will be important later on to understand your main point

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Make conceptual framework more clear

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Good evidence here of how the owner promotes the development of these meaningful relationships

Patrick O'Neill: Evidence that supports sustainability claim: 29 farms within a 50 miles radius.Evidence that supports local relationships claim: benefits of quick and clear communication between producer (farm) and consumer (cafe)

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Doesn’t seem to be an answer to the question, move towards why these relationships were important now that you have said how these were built.

 

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Workshop Draft:

Intro:

The frequent talk of climate change and food related health illnesses in the news and throughout social media has led to an increase in public awareness and heightened conversation about food and environmental safety. Newer, more eco-friendly food systems offer the opportunity to suppress these ecological issues. My research follows one localist restaurant, The White Dog Cafe, and its previous owner Judy Wicks who developed a local food system that was unusual of her time. The cafe has been considered to be a successful local business for the past 25 years by neighboring restaurants, as well as by BALLE (Business Alliance of Local Living Economies), a supportive, localist movement.

Local food businesses and systems rely heavily upon community engagement and, or cooperation. My project inquires, “What role has the The White Dog Cafe’s relationships had in its journey towards sustainability and high  social value?” My question researches the interconnected relationships that exist between this small, Philly restaurant and its surrounding community. The premise of my research is to determine: to what degree local relationships/spaces/networks (economic, business, social, and or agricultural)  affect business success. A local business that aims to truly impact the community and evenly acquire social and economic value is a successful localist business. We can consider the scholarship of Hess and assert that locals should serve the whole locale, and also inquire how communal relationships/the locale can inversely help the localist business or movement. The success is measured upon how mutual these exchanges are.

 

Methods:

Several key terms used throughout my research process are defined as followed. Localism refers to a set of philosophies, or promotions that prioritize a particular locality. Use or Social Value is a generalization put upon social experiences to create comparable quantities or values comparable to that of market value. Market Value, or Exchange Value is the monetary value or net worth of a product of business. Spaces of Engagement are physical places where people can go and engage in public rhetoric and can discuss community needs. The “Back to Land Movement” is a type of localization that promotes a return to agrarian lifestyle where each community creates what they respectively need; it focuses on environment and efficiency more than community ownership. The “Farm to Table” Movement refers to food being directly imported from farms to tables without going through markets or large distributors. More specifically, a farm to table restaurant promotes local culture by preparing and serving foods from local farms. A food system, “ includes all those activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption of food”; The food system includes the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, the degree to which we waste food, and how food production affects the natural environment. Sustainability is, “Environmental sustainability is the rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely”.

I visit concerns such as: the accessibility of the food products due to pricing, the types marketing techniques used, and lastly, who infact benefits more: the community or the business owner and her already entrepreneurially accomplished/successful/renowned family. I go about this examination through: readings about creating and securing,  sustainable food sheds and systems, and falsified sustainability and in depth readings into the background of the the business owner, her relationships with her customers and business partners and  her sustainability practices. These terms and this method plan were followed, because they provide my readers with the the best data required for them to understand impact that relationships can have on a business, especially a small one.

 

Results:

 

A restaurant in Philly, The White Dog Cafe, is a small localist restaurant that has sold fresh and locally produced food for 25 years now. The company owner, Judy Wicks, has maintained and expanded the company by establishing the restaurant in two more locations in the greater Pennsylvania area. Wick’s strongest business principle emphasizes the importance of relationships over money. Judy Wicks and The White Dog Cafe have been successful for the past 25 years because of the strong, local relationships established through customer service, residency, neighborhood engagement and local business partners.

1. Customer service is a series of small interactions between customers and employees that make an impact on a restaurant-goers experience at the restaurant. These personal interactions either help or hinder one’s relations with the place. Fortunately, The White Dog Cafe has put positive efforts towards customers to create memorable or friendly dining experiences for them. Yelp and Google Reviews allowed for immediate and uncut customer responses. Cristina L from Yelp mentioned, “The service was friendly and professional. We sat at the bar and got 10% off our food bill. Although we sat at the bar, food came slow. Besides the 10% discount, benefits of sitting at the bar include, self seating and fast drinks”. Through Google reviews, Susan Shore mentioned that, “Great environment,easy to have a conversation”. Similarly, William Judge added “Great place to eat. The bar is great at making anything you want just the way you want it. There are multiple dining rooms that each have a different décor. All of the themes revolve around dogs. Cute place great food and great service.” The service of this localist restaurant has encouraged many to return, as well as has interested an abundance of newcomers to dine there.
2. Personal interaction is essential in order to create true, meaningful experiences. The location of the Philly restaurant has been pivotal in the overall customer experience for two reasons. The first reason: the White Dog Cafe resides in a line of brownstones that externally resemble the style of many of the customers’ own homes. This creates a sort of familiarity for the nearby customers. The second reason, Judy Wicks, the owner of The White Dog Cafe in downtown Philly, herself lives above the restaurant in the three-story brownstone. She lives and interacts with the customers each day, not as just a business woman, but as a residence of the same area. She is a neighbor to the customers and the member of the downtown Philly community. She has been able to make relationships with her frequent customers on deeper levels because of similar or shared local experiences. Wicks is also able to tend to local needs and desires, because she has a heightened insight. This gives The White Dog Cafe use value.
3. The use value, or social value, of the cafe has a direct relation to its community engagement. As the engagement increases, as does the social value of The White Dog Cafe. The community benefits from the restauraunt in two direct manners. The first of the two benefits stems from employment. The small business employs about 100 employees, with 100% living wages. The business is 100% locally owned, while the produce and energy are sourced 100% locally as well. Secondly, Wicks has implemented an involved culture that extends into to local Philly community. She has made the cafe a frequent member in city events. Wicks asserted, “We did things like farm dinners and farm tours. We had a sustainable sh dinner. We did an annual cheese dinner, where we highlighted local cheeses. And we did an annual corn dinner, when the sweet corn was in season in the summertime. We started doing celebrations and special events around local foods, such as the Dance of the Ripe Tomato and the Farmers’ Sunday Supper.” For 25 years, the restaurant increased community ties, even implementing community sectors of her business plan that her daughter, Grace, helped her to maintain.
4. Lastly, business partner relationships provided The White Dog Cafe with more accessibility to environmental sustainability methods. Two relationships allowed for Wicks’s ecological success. First, her decision to create a social contract that demanded local buying and fair trading gave her the best business alignment. She sided with partnered with local farmers to create a “Farm to Table” menu that was “local, seasonal [and] sustainable”. Foods were bought and gathered from over 29 farms within a 50 mile radius of the restaurant. More specifically, this included, Zone 7 Farms (129 sustainable farms), Sandy Ridge Farm (cage free eggs), Woodland Jewel, and Greenmeadow Farm. Second, her relationships with local farmers created a form of interdependence, as well as trust. Their ability to communicate quickly and clearly as producer and seller is commendable, and has allowed for Wicks to ensure that the methods in which she collects her food is as sustainable as she is marketing it to be.

 

Discussion

• Successful business are determined by relationships
• Because Judy Wicks was able to manage relationships on social, agricultural, economic and business scales, The White Dog Cafe was successful
• “ Any Food System is only as good as the intent and practice behind it” (Ackerman-Leist 2)
• “Food discussion is about caring” (Ackerman-Leist 5)
• “Sense of place is resistance to globalized cultural homogenization” (A-L 9) = Powell
• Localism should serve whole local = Hess
• I had to consider if it was in fact sustainable,
• I had to consider whether the business owner was credible (also founder of BALLE on nationwide scale)
• False claims of sustainability in the news
• Local food = food safety
• Place/Local relates to local food, as well as relationships
• Americans = live under govt that is “for the people, by the people”
  • We should support, accept and appreciate smaller communities that also believe in this

---

Comments:

Patrick O'Neill: Research question: How have the relationships between the white dog cafe and the surrounding community perpetuated values or sustainability and high social value?

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Your question is clearly stated here. You’re basically asking what was the role of The White Dog Café and its relationships in developing sustainability and a high social value.

Patrick O'Neill: Motive: to see how relationships affect business success

Patrick O'Neill: reader accommodation- assumes we know about Hess and his scholarship

Patrick O'Neill: conceptual framework: Use/Social Value, Market/Exchange Value. Back to the land -> farm to table.

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: You’re accommodating your audience well in this paragraph by explaining key terms that will be important later on to understand your main point

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Make conceptual framework more clear

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Good evidence here of how the owner promotes the development of these meaningful relationships

Patrick O'Neill: Evidence that supports sustainability claim: 29 farms within a 50 miles radius.Evidence that supports local relationships claim: benefits of quick and clear communication between producer (farm) and consumer (cafe)

Brandon De Otaduy Nam: Doesn’t seem to be an answer to the question, move towards why these relationships were important now that you have said how these were built.

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Conference Draft:

Goals for Project 2

-Present clearer question

-Add more structure to into and method sections

-Provide better attention grabbing/advertising style openings in both the introduction and method section

-aim for more coherence and check for awkward wording

-talk about spaces of engagement

 

Introduction: What topics are in the public discourse? What is The White Dog Café?

 

Topics such as climate change, food-related health illnesses, and environmental protection have increasingly found refuge within the news outlets and throughout social media. This new popularity within the public discourse has led to an increase in public awareness and thus heightened conversation about food and environmental safety. Newer, eco-friendlier food systems offer the opportunity to suppress these ecological issues. My research follows one local Philadelphian restaurant, The White Dog Café, and its solutions to these concerns.

Trendy, local restaurants are every neighborhood’s hidden treasure. The White Dog Café, however, is not just a community luxury. The White Dog Café’s strategic social, economic, agricultural and environmental tactics have made impressionable strides on local businesses, on the global spectrum. The restaurant owner, Judy Wicks, is responsible for creating one of the most renowned local food systems in the United States and around the world, as well as for combining the efforts of environmental sustainability and positive social interaction to create a successful local business.

.

 

Methods:

 

How has a small, local restaurant able to break through and impact the local movement in a big way? There are close to 28 million small businesses in the Unites States. Statistics show that from these business, 70% of new businesses last around two years, while only 50% last about five and 33% last 15 or more. Additionally, numbers also show that about 52% of small business are run or based out of the home. So how has a small-scale local business located on the first floor of a three story apartment in downtown Philly been able to live a successful lifespan for more than 25 years now?

In order to answer these questions, several key terms must be defined and are as followed: Localism refers to a set of philosophies, or promotions that prioritize a particular locality. Use or Social Value is a generalization put upon social experiences to create comparable quantities or values comparable to that of market value. Market Value, or Exchange Value is the monetary value or net worth of a product of business. Spaces of Engagement are physical places where people can go and engage in public rhetoric and can discuss community needs. The “Back to Land Movement” is a type of localization that promotes a return to agrarian lifestyle where each community creates what they respectively need; it focuses on environment and efficiency more than community ownership. The “Farm to Table” Movement refers to food being directly imported from farms to tables without going through markets or large distributors. More specifically, a farm to table restaurant promotes local culture by preparing and serving foods from local farms. A food system, “ includes all those activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption of food”; The food system includes the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, the degree to which we waste food, and how food production affects the natural environment. Sustainability is, “environmental sustainability is the rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely”.

The premise of my research is to determine: to what degree local relationships/spaces/networks (economic, business, social, and or agricultural) affect business success. We can consider the scholarship of Hess and assert that locals should serve the whole locale, and also inquire how communal relationships/the locale can inversely help the localist business or movement. The degree of success is measured by how mutual these exchanges are.

I visit concerns such as: the accessibility of the food products due to pricing, the types of marketing techniques used, and lastly, who in fact benefits more: the community, or the business owner and her already entrepreneurially accomplished family. I perform this examination through readings about: creating and securing sustainable food sheds and systems, falsified sustainability, and the background of the business owner, including her relationships with her customers and business partners and her sustainability practices. These terms and this method plan were pursued, because they provide my readers with the best context and evidence required for them to understand the impact that relationships and smart strategizing can have on a business, especially a small (local) one.

 

Results:

 

Why are other restaurants taking note of The White Dog Café’s business strategies? Why are localists commending Wicks’s altruism to the local movement? A restaurant in Philly, The White Dog Cafe, is a small local restaurant that has sold fresh and locally produced food for 25 years now. In other words, she sells food harvested by locals, cooked by locals and for the locals. The company’s owner, Judy Wicks, has maintained and expanded the company by establishing the restaurant in two more locations in the greater Pennsylvania area. Wick’s strongest business principles emphasize the importance of relationships over money, and of utilizing resources in an efficient and safe way. Judy Wicks and The White Dog Cafe have been successful for the past 25 years because of the strong, local relationships established through customer service, residency, neighborhood engagement and local business partners.

1. Customer service is a series of small interactions between customers and employees that impact a restaurant-goers experience at their choice of dining. These personal interactions either help or hinder one’s relations with the restaurant. Fortunately, The White Dog Cafe has put positive efforts towards customers to create memorable or friendly dining experiences for them. Yelp and Google Reviews allowed for immediate and uncut customer responses. Cristina L from Yelp mentioned, “The service was friendly and professional. We sat at the bar and got 10% off our food bill. Although we sat at the bar, food came slow. Besides the 10% discount, benefits of sitting at the bar include, self-seating and fast drinks”. Through Google reviews, Susan Shore mentioned that, “Great environment, easy to have a conversation”. Similarly, William Judge added “Great place to eat. The bar is great at making anything you want just the way you want it. There are multiple dining rooms that each have a different décor. All of the themes revolve around dogs. Cute place great food and great service.” The service of this local restaurant has encouraged many to return, as well as has interested an abundance of newcomers to dine there.
2. Personal interaction is essential in order to create true, meaningful experiences. The location of the Philly restaurant has been pivotal in the overall customer experience for three reasons. The first reason: The White Dog Cafe resides in a line of brownstones that externally resemble the style of many of the customers’ own homes. This creates a sort of familiarity for the nearby customers. The second reason: Judy Wicks, the owner of The White Dog Cafe in downtown Philly, herself lives above the restaurant in the three-story brownstone. She lives and interacts with the customers each day, not as just a business woman, but as a resident of the same area. She is a neighbor to the customers, as well as a member of the downtown Philly community. She has been able to make relationships with her frequent customers on deeper levels because of similar or shared local experiences. Wicks is also able to tend to local needs and desires, because she has a heightened insight to her own community. The third reason: the local café works as a space of engagement and is a safe environment where community members can gather and discuss local affairs. For these three reasons, The White Dog Café has a high use, or social value.
3. The use value, or social value, of the cafe has a direct relation to its community engagement. As the engagement increases, as does the social value of The White Dog Cafe. The community benefits from the restaurant in two direct manners. The first of the two benefits stems from employment. The small business employs about 100 employees, with 100% living wages. The business is 100% locally owned, while the produce and energy are sourced 100% locally as well. Secondly, Wicks has implemented an involved/caring culture that extends into to local Philly community. She has made the cafe a frequent member in city events. Wicks asserted, “We did things like farm dinners and farm tours. We had a sustainable sh dinner. We did an annual cheese dinner, where we highlighted local cheeses. And we did an annual corn dinner, when the sweet corn was in season in the summertime. We started doing celebrations and special events around local foods, such as the Dance of the Ripe Tomato and the Farmers’ Sunday Supper.” For 25 years, the restaurant increased community ties, and even implemented community sectors of her business plan that her daughter, Grace, helped her to maintain.
4. Lastly, business relationships provided The White Dog Cafe with more accessibility to environmental sustainability methods. Two relationships allowed for Wicks’s ecological success. First, her decision to create a social contract that demanded local buying and fair trading gave her the best business alignment. She sided with partnered with local farmers to create a “Farm to Table” menu that was “local, seasonal [and] sustainable”. Foods were bought and gathered from over 29 farms within a 50 mile radius of the restaurant. More specifically, this included, Zone 7 Farms (129 sustainable farms), Sandy Ridge Farm (cage free eggs), Woodland Jewel, and Greenmeadow Farm. Second, her relationships with local farmers created a form of interdependence, as well as trust. Their ability to communicate quickly and clearly as producer and seller is commendable, and has allowed for Wicks to ensure that the methods in which she collects her food is as sustainable as she is marketing it to be.

 

Discussion

• Successful businesses are determined by relationships
• Because Judy Wicks was able to manage relationships on social, agricultural, economic and business scales, The White Dog Cafe was successful
• “ Any Food System is only as good as the intent and practice behind it” (Ackerman-Leist 2)
• “Food discussion is about caring” (Ackerman-Leist 5)
• “Sense of place is resistance to globalized cultural homogenization” (A-L 9) = Powell
• Localism should serve whole local = Hess
• I had to consider if it was in fact sustainable,
• I had to consider whether the business owner was credible (also founder of BALLE on nationwide scale)
• False claims of sustainability in the news
• Local food = food safety
• Place/Local relates to local food, as well as relationships
• Americans = live under govt that is “for the people, by the people”
  • We should support, accept and appreciate smaller communities that also believe in this

 

Q’s for conference:

• should I stick with just relationships? Due to amount of evidence provided vs sustainability
• Citing
• Format ok?
• Does this writing sound informal?
• Would I talk about Hess in the discussion or results section?
  

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  Post Conference Draft Goals:

• thinks more about this question/possibly change claim to this: how does judy wicks use/harsesslocalism as a marketing tool /brand herself
• makes cases that she maintains community etc pics
• 2 options: conclusion with answer at the beginning or other way around with intro
• method section improvements to be made:
• “here is a good way to look at local food movement”
• include raw material, so exclude the general question that I’m asking
• materials: case study, yelp, interview, consumer experience, case study, marketing strategies, interview = her motives or ideas
• evidence 1 is irrelevant — too commercial

 

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Final Draft:

Introduction: What topics are in the public discourse? What is The White Dog Café?

Topics such as climate change, food-related health illnesses, and environmental protection have increasingly found refuge within the news outlets and throughout social media. This new popularity within the public discourse has led to an increase in public awareness and thus heightened conversation about food and environmental safety. Newer, eco-friendlier food systems offer the opportunity to suppress these ecological issues. My research follows one local Philadelphian restaurant, The White Dog Café, and its solutions to these concerns tool to brand herself.

Trendy, local restaurants are every neighborhood’s hidden treasure. The White Dog Café, however, is not just a community luxury. The White Dog Café’s strategic social, economic, agricultural and environmental tactics have made impressionable strides on local businesses, on the global spectrum. Judy Wicks is commended for creating one of the most renowned local food systems in the United States and around the world, as well as for combining the efforts of environmental sustainability and positive social interaction to create a successful local business.  Consequently, my research primarily inquires how restaurant owner, Judy Wicks, harnesses localism as a marketing tool to brand herself.

 

Methods:

How has a small, local restaurant been able to break through and impact the local movement in a big way? There are close to 28 million small businesses in the Unites States. Statistics show that from these business, 70% of new businesses last around two years, while only 50% last about five and 33% last 15 or more. Additionally, numbers also show that about 52% of small business are run or based out of the home[1]. So how has a small-scale local business located on the first floor of a three story apartment in downtown Philly been able to live a successful lifespan for more than 25 years now?

Here is a good way to look at the local food movement; The local food movement firstly is a product of localism which refers to a set of philosophies, or promotions that prioritize a particular locality. There are four types of localist movements which include: Hyperlocalism, Technopoles, Devolution and a “Back to The Land” Movement. The White Dog Café, supports and markets an agrarian lifestyle and a healthy local food unit, so much so that it closely follows the  the characteristics of a “Back to Land” localist movement. The “Back to Land Movement” is a type of localization that promotes a return to agrarian lifestyle where each community creates what they respectively need; it focuses on environment and efficiency more than community ownership. This relationship from local farms to dining tables exhibits what many local food gourmets refer to as the “Farm to Table Movement”. The movement makes reference to food being directly imported from farms to restaurants or homes without going through markets or large distributors. More specifically, a farm to table restaurant promotes local culture by preparing and serving foods from local farms. The relationships that exist among nearing restaurants and their local farms create healthy, local food units, better refers to food systems. A food system, “ includes all those activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption of food”; The food system includes the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, the degree to which we waste food, and how food production affects the natural environment[2]. Sustainability or, “environmental sustainability [are] the rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely”[3]. On an environmental scope, Wicks flourishes through marketing these values. She does indistinguishably well on the social spectrum as well, taking into consider the quality of space and the values associated with being attaining a successful, consumer-friendly environment. Wicks must consider both the intangible and physical value of her restaurant. Use or Social Value is a generalization put upon social experiences to create comparable quantities or values comparable to that of market value, while Market Value, or Exchange Value is the monetary value or net worth of a product of business.  Where market and use value are valued is a physical space for which they both coexist which in this case refers to a space of engagement.  Spaces of Engagement are physical places where people can go and engage in public rhetoric and can discuss community needs.

There is a direct relation between marketing success, and prioritization around community engagement and environmental sustainability. To understanding this dependent relationship, I have analyzed sources that show in which ways Judy Wicks harnesses upon the philosophies of intimate relationships and environment safety to bring publicity to The White Dog Café. I consider the restaurant’s official website page and a BALLE (a foundations sporting local economies) case study about The White Dog Café to synthesize information about Wicks and her restaurant and marketing philosophies. Social media sites such as Yelp, Google Reviews and Facebook were processed, in order to analyze consumer experience. In addition, I reviewed an interleaved between Wicks and a person to attempt to understand her motives, ideas, and strategies as a business owner.

 

Results:

 

Why are other restaurants taking note of The White Dog Café’s business strategies? Why are localists commending Wicks’s altruism to the local movement? A restaurant in Philly, The White Dog Cafe, is a small local restaurant that has sold fresh and locally produced food for 25 years now. In other words, she sells food harvested by locals, cooked by locals and for the locals. The company’s owner, Judy Wicks, has maintained and expanded the company by establishing the restaurant in two more locations in the greater Pennsylvania area. She has further expanded the business by consistently marketing The White Dog Café with worldly values such sustainability and the importance of community. Wick’s strongest business principles emphasize the importance of relationships over money, and of utilizing resources in an efficient and safe way. Her array of virtuous principles have been commonly broadcasted on the world wide web on facebook, interviews and review cites. Judy Wicks and The White Dog Cafe have been successful for the past 25 years because her capitalization on strong, local relationships established through customer service, close residency, neighborhood engagement and local business partners; Wicks has marketed the restaurant meal selection as local, fresh and sustainable unceasingly from menu pages to billboard signs.

An example of the impact that the restaurant has on its fellow restaurant goers is highlighted in consumer experience. The consumers tend to care about the quality of the food more often than the legitimate experience, but Wicks insists upon more. She demands high quality service to initiate more relationships and to enhance existing relationships. Fortunately, The White Dog Cafe has put positive efforts towards customers to create memorable or friendly dining experiences for them. Yelp and Google Reviews allowed for immediate and uncut customer responses. Cristina L from Yelp mentioned, “The service was friendly and professional. We sat at the bar and got 10% off our food bill. Although we sat at the bar, food came slow. Besides the 10% discount, benefits of sitting at the bar include, self-seating and fast drinks”[4]. Through Google reviews, Susan Shore mentioned that, “Great environment, easy to have a conversation”[5]. Similarly, William Judge added “Great place to eat. The bar is great at making anything you want just the way you want it. There are multiple dining rooms that each have a different décor. All of the themes revolve around dogs. Cute place great food and great service.”[6] The service of this local restaurant has encouraged many to return, as well as has interested an abundance of newcomers to dine there. She sticks to true to altruistic values as she takes into deep consideration the well being  of the locals, her community.

Wicks preaches that personal interaction is essential in order to create true, meaningful experiences. The location of the Philly restaurant has been pivotal in the overall customer experience for three reasons. The first reason: The White Dog Cafe resides in a line of brownstones that externally resemble the style of many of the customers’ own homes. She advertises familiarity for the nearby customers. The second reason: Judy Wicks, the owner of The White Dog Cafe in downtown Philly, herself lives above the restaurant in the three-story brownstone[7]. She exploits the fact that she lives and interacts with the customers each day, not as just a business woman, but as a resident of the same community. She is a neighbor to the customers, as well as a member of the downtown Philly community. Wicks has been able to make relationships with her frequent customers on deeper levels because of similar or shared local experiences. Wicks is also able to tend to local needs and desires, because she has a heightened insight to her own community.  The third reason: the local café works as a space of engagement and is a safe environment where community members can gather and discuss local affairs. Wicks sells these three images  of acquaintanceship and is able to increase or at least maintain restauraunt popularity.  For these same three reasons, The White Dog Café has a high use, or social value.

Wicks harnesses The White Dog Cafe upon use value, or social value, understanding that it directly relates to its community engagement. As the engagement increases, as does the social value of The White Dog Cafe.  She targets her immediate community as her primary consumers. According to the BALLE Case Study[8] which includes primary information, the community benefits from the restaurant in two direct manners. The first of the two benefits stems from employment. The small business employs about 100 employees, with 100% living wages. The business is 100% locally owned, while the produce and energy are sourced 100% locally as well[9]. Secondly, Wicks has implemented an involved culture that extends into the local Philly community. She has made the cafe a frequent member in city events. Wicks asserts for the BALLE Case Study, “We did things like farm dinners and farm tours. We had a sustainable fish dinner. We did an annual cheese dinner, where we highlighted local cheeses. And we did an annual corn dinner, when the sweet corn was in season in the summertime. We started doing celebrations and special events around local foods, such as the Dance of the Ripe Tomato and the Farmers’ Sunday Supper.”[10]For 25 years, the restaurant increased community ties, and even implemented community sectors of her business plan that her daughter, Grace, helped her to maintain. For 25 years, Wicks used this familial method to gain publicity and advertise The White Dog Cafe around the community.

Lastly, Wicks asserts and mobilizes the idea that business relationships provide The White Dog Cafe with more accessibility to environmental sustainability methods[11]. Two relationships allowed for Wicks’s ecological success, which she has been clear about. First, her decision to create a social contract that demanded local buying and fair trading gave her the best business alignment. She partnered with local farmers to create a “Farm to Table” menu that was “local, seasonal [and] sustainable”[12]. Foods were bought and gathered from over 29 farms within a 50 mile radius of the restaurant. More specifically, this included, Zone 7 Farms (129 sustainable farms), Sandy Ridge Farm (cage free eggs), Woodland Jewel, and Greenmeadow Farm[13]. Facts and statistics such as these have been branded on the restaurant’s website for public consumption which is of Wicks’s own strategic doing. Second, her relationships with local farmers created a form of interdependence, as well as trust. Their ability to communicate quickly[14] and clearly as producer and seller is commendable, and has allowed for Wicks to ensure that the methods in which she claims and advertises to collect her food is as sustainable as she is marketing it to be.

 

 

Discussion:

Judy Wicks and The White Dog Cafe were successful because of strategic marketing decisions made to make Wicks’s business principles such as “relationships matter” and environmental sustainability public to the everyday consumer. Successful businesses are determined by quality and mutualistic relationships. Wicks established both quality and mutualistic relationships on both the personal and business level, with customers, neighbors, the extended community, local farmers and other local business associates. Her deliberate and consistent marketing methods of show and tell have deemed her successful. According to Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems, “ Any Food System is only as good as the intent and practice behind it”[15]. Because there was altruistic intent behind Wicks’ businesses practices, she received more positive results from her attempt at a local food system than not. Her ability to extend efforts out into the community using The White Dog Cafe brand initiated a psychological association of The White Dog Cafe with benevolence. Demanding that keen attention be paid to the locals by involving her brand in community events is how Wicks was able to make The White Dog Cafe more relevant to her Philadelphian community. Charity in the eyes of the public associates that, “Food discussion is about caring”[16]. When the public discourse considers the topic of food, there is a always the discussion of food safety. Food safety is one of the primary arguments that “Back to Land” Movements harness upon to create societal understanding and acceptance. Knowing this, Wicks’s call for local food production has made it easier for her to market the restaurant as a healthy resort to dining.

Judy Wicks makes big claims about The White Dog Cafe that include environment and food safety, and community engagement. When acts like that are committed, the authenticity of the claims are questioned and the degree to which she goes to prove or broadcast these claims to the public must be inquired. Throughout this research I had to consider whether the restaurant was sustainable or simply using claims of sustainability and localness to resonante feelings of safeness and familiarity among consumers, as many restaurants do to camouflage their foreign food concepts and practices.

On a larger scale, I had to consider the credibility of the restaurant owner, Judy Wicks. Wicks is considered to be a renowned local business owner, however, she has also made a name for herself on the global level. That is a major red flag in the local business realm that might suggest that she has ulterior motives other than serving the entire locale, a concept that David Hess uses to describe the drive behind localism. The global and local business spheres revolve around different business practices, motives and consumers and thus it was important to understand how closely she might have been overlapping these systems. In the past, Wicks has been heavily associated with the fact that she co-founded the urban clothing line Urban Outfitters, and that she helped to co-found BALLE (Business Alliance of Local Living Economies); the BALLE is a popularized local network initiative that advocates and supports local companies[17]. This same brand was responsible for the case study that was digested in order analyze Wicks and her restaurant. Launching The White Dog Cafe then co-founding an organization that could be used to publicize the efforts of the small restaurant illustrates the lengthy limits that Judy Wicks has gone to to prolong her creations. Judy Wicks has endured 25 years of success as result of advocating, harnessing and marketing localism to brand The White Dog Cafe

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Post Project Reflection:

Project 2 was a series of trial and error for me. This was mainly due to my initial partial understanding of the IMRD process. I initially thought that I had grasped what belonged in each section, but as I began the method section, I soon realized that I actually was not clear on what belonged there. Another area of confusion included the transition from the draft with the Archive and Conversation pieces to the actual first draft of Project 2. I initially thought that more attention would be paid to the conversational piece of the project, which is a portion that I spent a lot of time on. After conferencing and peer discussion, I was able to get a better grasp on the project itself.

The stages between creating my conference and final drafts were really divided into 3 parts: introduction and method, the results and the discussion. Between drafts I aimed to make my research more coherent and to gain a good structure for my discussion piece. I know that our conference meeting was cut short after we discussed the results section and initially planned to reschedule, but as that was not able to happen, I think that I was able to congregate a somewhat fluent discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Nazar, Jason. “16 Surprising Statistics About Small Businesses.” Forbes. N.p., 09 Sept. 2013.

Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

[2] By 2050, Reduced Fruit and Vegetable Intake Could Cause Twice as Many Deaths as

Under-nutrition. “Climate Change.” Welcome to the Oxford Martin Programme on the 

Future of Food. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

[3] This, By 1995 However. “Sustainability.” Definition of. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct.

2016.

[4] R., Shay, Crystal L., Megan H., Tiffany S., Niecee R., Jon S., Brianna B., Ali S., Simon B.,June

L., Lina H., Leyla A., Olivia H., Jessica A., Christina S., Sophia H., Monica P., Erica M.,

Alice P., and Nicholas Y. “White Dog Cafe – University City – Philadelphia, PA.” Yelp. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

 

[5]R., Shay, Crystal L., Megan H., Tiffany S., Niecee R., Jon S., Brianna B., Ali S., Simon B., June

L., Lina H., Leyla A., Olivia H., Jessica A., Christina S., Sophia H., Monica P., Erica M.,

Alice P., and Nicholas Y. “White Dog Cafe – University City – Philadelphia, PA.” Yelp. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

 

[6]  R., Shay, Crystal L., Megan H., Tiffany S., Niecee R., Jon S., Brianna B., Ali S., Simon B.,June

L., Lina H., Leyla A., Olivia H., Jessica A., Christina S., Sophia H., Monica P., Erica M.,

Alice P., and Nicholas Y. “White Dog Cafe – University City – Philadelphia, PA.” Yelp. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2016.

 

[7] Shuman, Michael. “Making The Case For Localism: Case Studies of Successful Local

Businesses.” Business Economy for Local Living Economies. N.p., n.d. Web. 06

Oct. 2016.

 

[8] Shuman, Michael. “Making The Case For Localism: Case Studies of Successful Local

Businesses.” Business Economy for Local Living Economies. N.p., n.d. Web. 06

Oct. 2016.

 

[9] Shuman, Michael. “Making The Case For Localism: Case Studies of Successful Local

Businesses.” Business Economy for Local Living Economies. N.p., n.d. Web. 06

Oct. 2016.

 

[10] Shuman, Michael. “Making The Case For Localism: Case Studies of Successful Local

Businesses.” Business Economy for Local Living Economies. N.p., n.d. Web. 06

Oct. 2016.

 

[11] “Welcome to the White Dog Cafe.” Restaurants in Wayne and Haverford: Main Line 

Restaurants. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

[12] “Welcome to the White Dog Cafe.” Restaurants in Wayne and Haverford: Main Line 

Restaurants. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

[13] “Welcome to the White Dog Cafe.” Restaurants in Wayne and Haverford: Main Line 

Restaurants. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

[14] By Mark | June 23, 2012. “BALLE Founder Judy Wicks on the Origins of Urban

Outfitters, the Birth of the Localist Movement, and the Necessity of Local

Ownership.” Mark Maynard. N.p., 23 June 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

 

[15] Ackerman-Leist, Philip. Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, 

and Secure Food Systems. Santa Rosa, CA: Post Carbon Institute, 2013. Print.

 

[16] Ackerman-Leist, Philip. Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, 

and Secure Food Systems. Santa Rosa, CA: Post Carbon Institute, 2013. Print.

 

[17] By Mark | June 23, 2012. “BALLE Founder Judy Wicks on the Origins of Urban

Outfitters, the Birth of the Localist Movement, and the Necessity of Local

Ownership.” Mark Maynard. N.p., 23 June 2012. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.