A familiar face from Boston's café scene is stepping into a new kind of kitchen. Kate Lord, who previously managed Tatte Bakery & Cafe, has reopened Haley House Cafe, the nonprofit eatery designed to generate revenue to support free food access and workforce development programs.
A New Chapter for a Longtime Roxbury Institution
The reopening, first reported by The Business Journals, places Lord at the helm of a roughly 2,000-square-foot café on Washington Street. Lord has worked at Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe and Tatte, according to the outlet's reporting, giving her a résumé that spans both corporate chains and the kind of fast-growing local bakery brand Tatte became before its national expansion.
The café's design is about more than coffee and pastries. Per the same Business Journals report, Haley House Cafe is structured to generate revenue that supports free food access and workforce development programs, and kitchen staffers there are expected to earn more than most of their competitors in the restaurant industry.
Relocating and Expanding on a Longtime Mission
The move represents a return for an organization that has been largely out of its original storefront for years. Haley House says the new café “relocates and expands on past café operations,” positioning the Washington Street location as a bigger version of what came before rather than a wholly separate venture.
The nonprofit's earlier home, at 12 Dade Street, isn't disappearing from the picture. Instead, Haley House says that space will now serve as the dedicated hub for catering and production, with the organization's existing catering service already available to order.
Part of a Larger Washington Street Development
The café sits inside a mixed-use project led by Dream Collaborative and New Atlantic Development that is planned to include housing, retail and arts spaces, according to Haley House. Back in 2022, the nonprofit said its Bakery Café was closed pending completion of construction at 2147 Washington Street, and described a building slated to include a total of 74 residential units with a wide range of affordability, including 62 rental apartments. At the time, Haley House said the project was slated to be completed in the spring of 2024, though that was a projection rather than confirmation that construction wrapped on schedule.
The café's exact reopening date remains uncertain. Haley House's own site says the Bakery Café is returning “this fall” and, elsewhere, “this Winter.” A separate 2026 nonprofit profile from Nonprofit Net says the café reopens in fall 2026.
Jobs With a Mission Attached
Beyond the kitchen itself, Haley House says the Bakery Café plans to offer CORI-friendly employment opportunities for returning citizens, continuing a hiring philosophy the organization has built its identity around. It's a model that echoes a broader industry conversation about kitchen pay equity: a trio of Boston-area restaurants, Tres Gatos, Centre Street Cafe and Casa Verde, previously added a pre-tax 3% Hospitality Administrative Fee to guest checks specifically to raise back-of-house kitchen wages closer to what front-of-house servers and bartenders were earning, according to Server Not Servant.
For now, the details that matter most to regular customers — exact hours, menu, and a firm opening date — haven't been locked down publicly. What's clear is that Lord is taking on a mission that predates her involvement, built around using a neighborhood café to fund programs far beyond the counter.
