White Dog Cafe celebrates its 25th anniversary

In the cold of January 1983, Judy Wicks brought home cooking to new heights when she opened a humble take-out coffee and muffin shop on the first floor of her residence at 3420 Sansom St.

25 years later, White Dog Cafe is commemorating its past with a year-long celebration of the restaurant and its social and environmental activism.

The summer portion of the celebration kicked off on July 11 with the 26th Annual Bastille Day Street Party. In this tradition, customers dress up as revolutionaries and French poodles and reenact the historic storming of the Bastille from the French Revolution with plastic axes, swords and rubber boulders.

The second event of the summer series will take place tomorrow. The 17th annual Noche Latina Street Fair will begin at 9 p.m. and will include live salsa and merengue music and dancing in front of the restaurant.

The last of the summer celebrations is the 25th Anniversary Party and Dance of the Ripe Tomatoes, which will take place on Sept. 12 and is a benefit event for the restaurant's non-profit group, White Dog Community Enterprises.

WDCE was developed in 2001 as an organization to connect local Pennsylvanian farmers with urban restaurants. 20- percent of White Dog Cafe's profits are donated to WDCE and other non-profit groups.

"We started White Dog Community Enterprises to teach others about buying local and provide free consulting," Wicks said. "White Dog Cafe really helped start the movement in Philadelphia, as we've been buying from local farmers for over 20 years."

In addition to buying local foods, White Dog engages in many other green initiatives. In Jan. 2002, White Dog became the first business in Pennsylvania to purchase all of its electricity from wind power.

White Dog's newest green initiative is its solar hot water system. Installed this past year, the rooftop contraption heats water by the sun and uses only two-thirds of the gas required by the old boiler system. Additionally, last year the cafe stopped selling bottled water in order to limit its use of plastic bottles and the "long distance transport of water" according to the cafe's web site.

The restaurant also participates in a compost program with other restaurants on Sansom Row, uses solely eco-friendly supplies and redistributes its extra frying oil to local farmers to be recycled into biodiesel fuel.

"In terms of the future, we're always looking for the next way that we can be more green," Wicks said. She added that WDCE is also looking to help historically disadvantaged minority communities.

And while Wicks' programs have reached international levels - through partnerships with other environmentally active restaurants in countries around the world - she still said that Philadelphia, and specifically Sansom Street, will continue to be her home.

"I'm grateful to the university community that has been supportive for 25 years. I feel we've become a Penn institution and would be happy and proud to serve the Penn community for another 25 years," she said.

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