Welton Street Cafe welcomes back dine-in guests, focuses on keeping doors open

DENVER —  Welton Street Cafe, a cultural staple in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood, might have closed its dining room at the onset of the pandemic, but the beloved restaurant never gave up on its customers.

“There were businesses around us that closed during the pandemic, but we never closed,” said Fathima Dickerson, who co-owns the restaurant with her mom, dad, brother, and sister.  

Since reopening the dining room on July 27 of this year, Dickerson and the rest of the Welton Street Cafe staff have been committed to keeping their doors open, the community fed, and providing a safe space for Denver’s Black residents.

“Because Welton Street Cafe is in a historically Black district, it's important for Black people to have Black spaces where they can be Black,” Dickerson said. “I know that sounds weird, but when you're a Black person, the only time you can really be yourself is when you're with people that look like you.”

Since Dickerson’s parents opened the doors in 1986, the restaurant has served as a hub for the Black community to gather and enjoy food together. In addition to serving authentic southern and Caribbean-style dishes like jerk chicken and fried catfish, Welton Street Cafe also provides a space for other local businesses to advertise their services and upcoming events, like The Five Points Sneaker Ball, which will raise money for seven organizations including Welton Street Cafe. 

After a challenging year and a half, the restaurant isn’t turning away any extra support.

“Black entrepreneurs have a difficult time. We have to work harder to keep our businesses there,” Dickerson said. “But trying to survive COVID...that was survival of the fittest.” 

Along with other restaurants who transitioned to take-out dining, Welton Street Cafe faced other financial burdens during the pandemic— including a broken HVAC system and elevator—that have all but disappeared since the restaurant welcomed back dine-in customers.

“We had to get really creative,” Dickerson said. Welton Street Cafe started selling chocolate bars and reaching out to local businesses, offering to cook meals, in order to pay the bills.

Even before the pandemic, survival wasn’t easy for Welton Street Cafe. Just outside the doors, Dickerson watched as gentrification transformed her neighborhood and displaced many of its Black and brown residents. As rent and property values sky-rocketed and other Black-owned businesses closed, Welton Street Cafe hung on.

“The highs and the lows...that’s a part of life, and it's definitely a part of entrepreneurship,” Dickerson said. “You have hard times, but you don’t close your business. We’ve struggled to pay bills, we’ve struggled to employ.”

Dickerson credits her community for keeping Welton Street Cafe’s doors open and customers happy. 

“If there is nobody else to thank, you have to thank the community, because community is what keeps you in business,” Dickerson said. “You get to see all these wonderful faces and feed all these wonderful families like it makes you eager to continue.”

While the pandemic still looms and local restaurants struggle to employ staffers, Dickerson hopes the community will keep showing up and dining with Welton Street Cafe. 

“We've served peoples’ whole family. You're looking at generations and generations that we’re feeding...To have Welton Street Cafe in the community is necessary so that we continue to have places where we can gather to be ourselves, and to hold on to the historic part of Five Points. With everything changing, the people changing. It's just like, what here is still Black?”

Victoria Carodine is a digital content producer for Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at victoriacarodine@rmpbs.org.

Garcelle Franklin is a writer and fellow for Rocky Mountain PBS.