Perspective: The woman behind White Dog

Anything but the typical corporate office, the third floor hideaway is teeming with eclectic art and a hearty fire hazard's worth of papers and books. A plastic apple juice bottle moonlights as a vase for wild flowers straight from the Poconos. Alice, the resident canine -- appropriately white-furred -- licks the toes of visitors.

And plopped haphazardly atop one of the many piles is Henry Miller's Nothing but the Marvelous.

The title jives with the image and philosophy of the White Dog prez -- or, more formally, the president, founder and CEO. Entering her second decade as the White Dog head honcho, Judy Wicks is 56 and every bit the activist and idealist she was in her 20s.

And that, to her employees and those who know her well, is what has undeniably crafted her business into what it is today.

"I mean, how does the sun get a plant to grow? -- it's just her philosophy is her business," chef Kevin von Klause says of Wicks' influence on the White Dog establishment. "Everything she does and believes in is reflected here."

It's been 33 years since Wicks first moved to Philadelphia and she has gone from overseeing a small non-profit store to running a multi-million dollar company.

The non-profit store Wicks co-founded with her childhood sweetheart has since become the international and profit-oriented chain Urban Outfitters.

First located next to Koch's Deli at 4307 Locust Street, the original Urban Outfitters -- then called Free People's Store -- "became kind of a general store for activists," according to Wicks.

Inspired by Free People's community bulletin board, Wicks began publishing her own directory of local activist groups. And while she would leave the Free People business just a year after starting it, she kept up the publishing.

"I left the marriage and the business in '72 and started working as a waitress at La Terrasse," she says, adding that she saw the waitressing stint as simply a way to pay her living expenses while her ex-husband took the reins at what would become Urban Outfitters.

"I've never been a cook, I like to eat, but I didn't come into it from the cooking angle," she explains of the path that led her to starting the White Dog Cafe. "I just used the cards that were dealt me."

As it was, those cards put her on the fast track when the owner of La Terrasse promoted Wicks straight from her waitressing position to the restaurant's general manager.

The decision came suddenly when the former general manager was fired and Wicks considered the new job simply a temporary "project."

"I just started organizing and hiring and firing and building it and so on," Wicks says, checking off the changes that seemed so natural -- cleaning, reorganizing and "writing a 50-page long job description for waitresses because that's what I knew."

Yet, five years in, she still considered it simply a way to make a living. "People asked what I did and I said I had a non-profit publishing company and never even mentioned the restaurant business," Wicks recalls with a laugh.

"But then I started to see that I could use the restaurant as a vehicle for social change," she says.

Making use of her realization, Wicks threw a breakfast at La Terrasse for refugees from El Salvador.

"That didn't go over with my conservative partner," she says, also pointing to his refusal to follow through on promises to make her a co-partner in the business.

So after running La Terrasse for 10 years, Wicks went home to begin again.

"I just started over, just as a humble coffee shop," she says of White Dog's modest beginnings on the first floor of her home. "My ambition was to build it into the best restaurant in town, so I just gradually over the years built it up."

Far from the establishment it is today, the White Dog was little more than an expansion of Wicks' own kitchen in its early years.

"We had a dishwashing sink in the dining room so the customers would just pass their plates over to the dishwasher, and if you had to go to the bathroom, you went upstairs to my house," she says. "And at the end of the night, the closing waiter would deposit the money under my pillow."

White Dog Cafe now seats 200 people and -- with the inclusion of the accompanying Black Cat gift shop -- has over 100 employees and grosses five million in annual sales.

Successful as she may be in traditional dollars-and-cents terms, colleagues say Wicks has maintained her values.

"Judy has just been one of the great progressive voices in the city and in business," says Ira Harkavy, associate vice president and director of the Center for Community Partnerships. "She's played a crucial role in this community."

The White Dog operates with a commitment to sustainable agriculture, locally grown produce and humanely raised meats.

Typical of White Dog purchases, a $750 chocolate order -- unique in the restaurant industry for being "slave-free organic chocolate" -- arrived recently, according to von Klause.

Seen as an astronomical cost to some and a silly nuance to others, the organic chocolate is a very purposeful White Dog selection.

"It costs about six times as much as regular chocolate, but it means the people are getting a fair price for their chocolate and their work," von Klause says.

The business practices to support these causes are worth the extra cost, according to White Dog philosophies.

Winning praise from outsiders as well, the cafe has been recognized both nationally and locally -- stacking up an impressive resum‚ of awards and fans.

"We are very impressed with Judy Wicks' commitment to create a socially conscious business," University President Judith Rodin says, calling White Dog "a terrific anchor for Sansom Street and the campus."

But Wicks and the University haven't always been on such cordial terms. Decades ago, Wicks fought "tooth and nail" to fend off Penn developers from extending the University onto Sansom Street.

"It's certainly very different from when I first moved here in 1970 where Penn was the ogre that was tearing down everything," she says.

Wicks now praises University ambitions to preserve the neighborhood by fostering home ownership and community around campus.

"I think it's just really important that there be more people like me on campus that are permanent residents and that are committed to this neighborhood," Wicks says. Those are the people "that are going to hold down the fort here because the students come and go."

If Wicks isn't going anywhere, neither is her message.

"I like to kid that I use food to lure innocent customers into social activism," Wicks says.

The practice seems to be working, too. The tri-annual newsletter "Tales from the White Dog Cafe" -- packed with activist information and events -- currently has a mailing list of 20,000.

"We really consider information to be one of our products along with quality food and service," Wicks says, outlining the weekly table talks and discussions that dot the restaurant's agenda.

The cafe also hosts annual celebrations including a Martin Luther King Jr. dinner, a Ghandi breakfast and a freedom seder for Passover.

Yet Wicks' vision for the restaurant extends beyond celebrations and local gatherings. Under a project entitled "Table for Six Billion, Please!" White Dog reaches an international contingent, establishing sister relationships with restaurants in foreign countries.

As one drawn toward controversy, Wicks picks locations -- so far including Cuba, Vietnam and the Netherlands, among others -- specifically for their strained foreign policy relations with the United States.

"We go to visit... to see how our policies affect the lives of others," Wicks says, having just returned from a trip to establish sister relationships in the Middle East.

The "we" is important at White Dog -- staffers can join Wicks on her international field trips for half of what others pay to come along.

"One thing that's different working here than any other place is that there's a lot of team effort," six-year White Dog employee Naomi Fiordimondo says.

Periodic "Staff Howls" are even held to celebrate employees.

"We get together and howl about our accomplishments," Fiordimondo says.

The staff also takes the occasional bonding retreat to strengthen in-house conductivity.

"We all get a school bus with a couple of kegs in the back" to go on staff picnics, Fiordimondo says.

And while Fiordimondo notes that liberal politics aren't requisite to joining the White Dog pack, she adds, "The majority of us here believe in the mission."

That mission is furthered through the White Dog Cafe Foundation, which annually receives 10 to 20 percent of White Dog's profits. Last year, the foundation gave $75,000 to various causes -- including organizations promoting sustainable energy, local clothing manufacturing and community arts.

"The foundation takes to a greater level of social impact the things we've accomplished in the cafe," Wicks says.

And for her part, Wicks expects to continue holding down the fort on her stretch of Sansom Street.

"I don't have any plans to move," Wicks says. "I will probably live here all my life and my kids will inherit the house and the White Dog will go on."

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