Vous Cafe brings Cajun flavor to Grand Haven’s Momentum Center

Cajun flavor has come to Grand Haven’s Momentum Center.

The Vous Cafe, driven by owner Kaja Thornton, offers training and employment opportunities for staff with and without disabilities.

The Momentum Center (for Social Engagement) is a positive space for social and recreational activities related to mental health, wellbeing and disability and a safe space to talk about complicated topics.

“It is about social integration. It is about confronting the stereotypes and dismantling the stigma that keeps people marginalized,” Momentum Center Experi-Mentor Barbara Lee VanHorssen says. “It’s about everybody being in community together.”

Cajun twist

The Rendezvous Cafe once operated out of the space, featuring $1 donuts and coffee, but the new menu expands on that greatly.

The Vous Cafe features favorites reminiscent of the Rendezvous Restaurant, as well as menu items with a Cajun twist. 

Thornton promises “to dispel the myth that Cajun equals spicy. Cajun promises flavor, and The Vous Cafe has brought that flavor to Grand Haven.” Executive chef Stacy Jones’ recipes with a Cajun twist include The Sheepherder’s Breakfast, a shrimp-topped salad, and a catfish basket, as well classic sandwiches, burgers, and wraps.  
The cafe serves breakfast and lunch Tuesday-Saturday from 7 a.m.to 2 p.m.

The cafe had a ribbon cutting ceremony last month with local dignitaries.

Overcoming Barriers

Kaja Thornton has already established the popular Kaja’s Flavor Packs and the nonprofit Overcoming Barriers that helps those with disabilities. 

Thornton and VanHorssen met through the Momentum Center’s Across the Bridge leadership exchange program that connects people in Grand Haven/Spring Lake and in Muskegon. The communities are divided by more than a river. Culture also differentiates them, and the program attempts to “bridge” that gap.

It was there that VanHorssen learned about Thornton’s Us Cafe in Muskegon Heights and the community hub she had created there. It was exactly what The Momentum Center needed. 

“I felt she had really succeeded in making the Us Cafe into the community Hub I wanted the Momentum Center to be,” VanHorssen says.

Thornton pays a licensing fee and a percent of sales to operate the Vous Cafe out of the Momentum Center’s kitchen.

Almost a third of the Momentum Center’s members come to the center via the cafe.

“It’s a soft entry to services,” VanHorssen says. “We believe having this more robust food service will draw more people from the public into the building.”