Tag: Thelma’s Kitchen

Entrepreneur of the Year honorees stepped through a wormhole of fate: Here’s what they found in KC

By Tommy Felts / December 5, 2025

The ultra successful all share one common influence, said Peter Mallouk: luck. And for the president and CEO of Creative Planning, good fortune has revolved around Kansas City. It all started when his parents left Egypt and ended up in Brookside, he told a crowd Wednesday evening during the 39th University of Missouri-Kansas City Entrepreneur…

Read More >

Just-launched retail hub gets first tenant, battling ‘blight of the heart’ on Troost corner

By Tommy Felts / June 3, 2025

‘We are each other’s bootstraps’ Transforming a long-vacant building along Troost into a space for neighborhood small businesses is about empowering the entrepreneurs already living and working in the east side community, said Father Justin Mathews. The newly unveiled RS Impact Exchange — built within the renovated, 1920-built Baker Shoe Building at 3108-3116 Troost Ave.…

Read More >

‘We are each other’s bootstraps’: Pay-It-Forward cafe says pressure to serve neighbors is back

By Tommy Felts / August 2, 2024

The reopening of Thelma’s Kitchen — a pay-it-forward restaurant on Troost Avenue — not only flips the menu on the “soup kitchen” concept, but serves as an anchor of compassionate, community-focused care in the face of neighborhood gentrification, said Father Justin Mathews. “We view what we’re doing here as kind of like urban acupressure,” said…

Read More >

This orthodox priest-turned-indie rock artist has more than a few singles up his sleeve

By Tommy Felts / October 31, 2023

Writing the lyrics to the next song in his life, Kansas City social entrepreneur Father Justin Mathews is pushing the boundaries of indie rock through a new album and breakthrough single. The debut track “Even the Sea,” released by Mathews’ social venture platform, Not Made By Hands, is out now. A full album — “The…

Read More >
[adinserter block="4"]