Food can be life-changing. 

Meals bring people together – there is a closeness that can come while cooking with each other, making food for others to enjoy.

So when one man, who had spent a good portion of his early years in prison, had a chance to turn his love for food into a life-changing career, he took it.

While Mike Carter was in prison, he was known for making pizza. But not your typical pizza.

In jail, he said he experimented with what he could find at the prison commissary – such as ramen noodles and Cheez-It crackers for pizza crust. Carter would then add barbecue sauce and already-cooked sausage on top, dubbing it ‘jailhouse pizza.’

“I had to get creative,” said Carter, 37, who spent a total of 12 years behind bars for armed robbery and home invasion.

Now, he has turned pizza into his specialty, working as the head chef at Down North Pizza in Philadelphia. The restaurant has one mission – to only hire formerly-jailed employees.

From left, Carter with Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, the founder of Down North Pizza. Photo by Down North Pizza

For owner Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, helping former inmates get on their feet is the main mission. More than 44 percent of former U.S. inmates end up returning to prison within a year of being released.

There’s a big stigma. They’ve been dehumanized for so long,” Abdul-Hadi said.

He also offers housing for employees that is located above the restaurant, and they get access to pro bono legal aid.

“The person is not the crime,” he said. “The crimes are sometimes based off of their socioeconomic circumstances, or the hand that they’ve been dealt. They’re not the monsters that people think they are.”

Carter, who lived with his grandmother growing up, agreed. He said he had to fend for himself financially at a young age to help make ends meet.

“I’ve been out in the world earning my keep since I was 14,” Carter said. He called it ‘survival mode’ and said that he turned to crime when he struggled to make enough money for food and other necessities.

After spending three years in juvenile detention for theft, he began working at a catering company while going to the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College. He’d always dreamed of becoming a chef, Carter said.

“My love for food developed in my family. My grandmother was always cooking. I was always in the kitchen beside her,” he said.

But it took a while for Carter to pull himself out of the cycle of leaving and going back to jail. Not long after leaving the juvenile detention center, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Mike Carter is the executive chef at Down North Pizza in Philadelphia. After spending 12 years in and out of prison, Carter turned his life around Photo by Down North Pizza

While he was locked up, Carter worked in the kitchen, cooking three meals a day for thousands of inmates.

The kitchen was always the place where I could survive in,” he said.

When he was finally released, Carter enrolled in a culinary management program.

“I was done with the streets,” he said. He had even raised $15,000 to open his own food truck.

But a traffic stop while in a friend’s car, landed Carter back in jail after an unregistered gun was found in the car. He was also found in violation of his parole after not updating his address after a house fire. After 27 months in jail, and his $15,000 spent on legal fees – his case was dismissed and he was released.

“That 27 months was the shortest time of me being incarcerated, but it was the hardest, because I had worked so hard to get to where I was at,” he said.

Pure luck landed him a meeting with Abdul-Hadi, who hired Carter immediately.

For Carter, it’s all about making sure that others know they can do more with their life.

“I want to leave my mark on this planet, and actually help the guys that have been through what I’ve been through and prevent as many kids as possible from going through it,” said Carter, who has a 5-month-old son, and an 8-year-old daughter. “We deserve a second chance. And if given a second chance, we are the hardest working.”

Watch below for a look at this inspiring restaurant and chef.

Source: Washington Post