Turning Tables Tavern at Turner Hall creates opportunity for chefs and brings a diverse dining team downtown

Emerald Mills is creating opportunity for restaurateurs, specifically chefs of color, unlike anything else currently in Milwaukee.

At Turning Tables Tavern, which opened in August at 1040 N. Phillips Ave. under Turner Hall Ballroom, Mills has created a space for up-and-coming chefs to collaborate on an expansive, ever-changing menu.

The concept at Turning Tables is to give chefs who don’t have service industry experience a chance to see if their dishes translate to a restaurant setting.

“It is focused on people who want to learn,” Mills said. “There is such a gap. The amount of people who need support is so large right now as food-based entrepreneurs and chefs in the hospitality industry.”

Mills largely focuses on supporting future Black restaurant owners.

Only 2% of Wisconsin restaurants are Black owned, which was one of the lowest rates in the 36 states with data available. and far below the national average of 9% of Black restaurant ownership, according to the National Restaurant Association.

And various studies show that one in three restaurants close in their first year.

“The chances for a Black-owned business to succeed in the restaurant industry is slim to none,” Mills said. "And so this concept Turning Tables, which provides mentorship and hands on training for food-based entrepreneurs, is designed to mitigate a lot of risk before they start."

A main component is a six-to-18 month program for aspiring chefs to learn how to work in the Turning Tables kitchen. Students will graduate at their own pace, giving each participant the ability to learn while pursuing other endeavors or accelerate the program if desired.

They chefs-in-training throughout their course will learn different cooking methods, how to prepare a profitable menu, and other important factors of running a restaurant.

Sometimes those who are accepted into the program will have pop-up nights at the tavern with the help of Turning Tables staff, like the ongoing Winging it Wednesdays, where student Quajuana Dunomes-Williams, who goes by Chef Fatima, takes over the menu to sell her wing recipes at the restaurant.

Mills also twice a year will run a competition, "Who wants to be a restaurateur?" which gives chefs a brunch or dinner shift where they run the restaurant completely on their own.

"I think that when you're a food-based entrepreneur and you make great cookies out your kitchen when you want to and people buy them, you can have an unrealistic view of all it takes and all it entails, so that experience gave people the opportunity to really see what it's like," Mills said.

'I never knew this was out here'

Before Turning Tables was fully open to the public, it selected the first class of chefs to begin the free program.

One accepted applicant was Chef TeQuanda Rodgers, who makes Southern fare and comfort food through her business Charlee Boi’z, named after her first son.

"The first time I picked up a pot, I was 7 years old and, you know, I was the oldest of six and we kind of grew up in unforeseen circumstances, so it makes you more responsible and it kicked me into cooking," Rodgers said.

Rodgers found Turning Tables through her friend Jervel Williams, who is Mills' husband and who runs Mister Bar-B-Que. 

More: Mister Bar-B-Que mixes Southern roots with Milwaukee tastes

"I've been out here selling my food and different things. When they came up with the whole thing, I saw a post on Facebook and I'm like I'm going to step out on a whim here and went ahead to the orientation," Rodgers said. "It was just like wow, I never knew this was out there. They are some great people."

In some ways, cooking with Turning Tables has been lifesaving for Rodgers. In 2021 her son Charlee battled kidney disease and died from kidney failure last September.

Prior to his death, she would vend her food at spaces and events to try to make money for his bills, but she said vendor fees kept her from making enough profit. When her son died, she lost interest in cooking altogether.

"I went through a depressive state. I was down really bad, and my husband picked up me up and said this isn’t you," Rodgers said. "That moment I realized I had to get up and do something. I tried reaching back out to vending spaces, and it's like they made things so hard that it was unreachable for me."

That's when she found Turning Tables and started working there, but tragedy struck her family again. Early this summer her 17-year-old son was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma.

"The thing that stopped me from wallowing back and going back into that depressive space was the opportunity that Emerald and Jervel gave me," Rodgers said. "My goals are still obtainable even though I'm going through a lot right now."

Rodgers can keep a clear eye on her goal without financial burdens, and has already benefited from things like having a Milwaukee Area Technical College chef come by for a class.

"If it was something we didn’t know, he showed us the proper way. It was such a top-notch experience," Rodgers said.

She is working toward getting a few dishes on the menu at Turning Tables. her current goal is to perfect her peach cobbler recipe for the restaurant's menu.

"I have a couple recipes that are top-notch, and they deserve to be on somebody's shelf," Rodgers said. "And they are in a position where I could make long-term income and help my family while my son is battling this cancer. I really appreciate that because I've never had anybody who cared enough to help me feed my family."

'We should do something more'

Mills got the idea for Turning Tables while running what she called Diverse Dining. Before COVID-19 hit, she would arrange for groups of people to visit different restaurants owned by minority chefs.

“That started basically out of the need I saw in the city with kind of merging Black, brown and white people together; there are so many systemic and relational reasons why the systemic things were happening. Because the neighborhoods and communities are segregated, people didn’t know how to relate to each other,” Mills said.

“I started to look and see what ways and what places I saw people of different races being together and it seemed like it was restaurants, and that’s where I see people cross geographical barriers to get good food if they wanted to.”

Then she changed her focus to work with chefs who haven't had the opportunity to run their own restaurant yet.

“It erupted a passion in me and Jervel that we should do something more, that we should do something, get a kitchen and incorporate this work into whatever were doing," Mills said.

She heard through a local chef that the Tavern at Turner Hall was going out of business. She put in a request proposal to run a restaurant for new chefs there, and won. Now Turning Tables leases the space.

"It's a great location for us, plus we're providing diverse and delicious food downtown, and provide community, so by the time our student chefs launch they'll already have customers, support and people who are following their journey, and the people downtown can get a sense of that culture," Mills said.

Not only did the city see the potential of Mills' idea, but so did Milwaukee Bucks star Jrue Holiday. His foundation is granting Turning Tables a $10,000 donation.

"It was very validating for me from the sense that they had 1,300 applications and they picked 20 people. There are a lot of people doing great things," Mills said.

"Getting involved in the hospitality industry is such a grand opportunity," Mills said. "You can tell someone who worked in restaurants, how they treat people. It teaches soft skills, and it is never going away. We're always going to eat, and want to eat good food, and it’s a massive opportunity to help a lot of people financially, but also to get to the objective to help people as a community and ending racism and segregation."

Currently, Williams' food from Mister Bar-B-Que is featured on the menu while the business works toward graduating its first class of chefs and collaborating more with chef hopefuls.

Turning Tables is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, with extended hours for events at Turner Hall and Fiserv Forum.

For more information visit the Facebook page at facebook.com/turningtablesmke or call (414) -210-3451.

Jordyn Noennig covers Wisconsin culture and lifestyle.  Follow her on Instagram @JordynTaylor_n. Find her on Twitter @JordynTNoennig. Call her at 262-446-6601 or email Jordyn.Noennig@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: New Milwaukee restaurant Turning Tables Tavern open at Turner Hall