Kensington Grows, Cooks, & Blogs: An Interview with Blew Kind of Franny Lou's Porch (Part 1)

By Matt Hilferty

Interfaith Philadelphia launched the Crafting Community Project in Kensington in Fall 2020. Through this neighborhood-rooted art and education initiative, we collaborated with organizations, faith communities, and neighbors to launch the Kensington Grows, Cooks, and Serves, a multi-part series exploring the intersections of food, faith, and culture within the Kensington area. One component of this initiative is a blog interview series highlighting Kensington-based restaurants and grocers who demonstrate understanding, community-centeredness, and the celebration of diversity. This week we sat down with Blew Kind, the founder and co-owner of Franny Lou's Porch. This interview is Part 1 of 2.

1. Tell us a little about your business. (e.g. Where are you located? When did you open? What do you serve/sell?)

Franny Lou’s Porch opened in 2015. We’re a coffee and tea house, and community space. We’re named after Frances E.W. Harper and Fannie Lou Hamer, both 19th and 20th-century activists, mothers, and artists. We hold a lot of their values in our business, such as fair trade, organic sourcing, communal practices, and a connection to the earth. Everything in the store is local, organic, and relational trade. And, made with love! That’s the biggest thing. 

We are at the corner of York and Coral in East Kensington, or Kensington, depending on how long you’ve been here. You can find us online at https://frannylousporch.org/.

2. What inspired you to start your business? For example, did you grow up eating this type of food at home and decide to share it with the community?

I started working with coffee by making my mother’s coffee. I liked the process of making coffee so I started working at a major chain in Virginia when I was 14. Then, I transferred to Philly with that same chain when I was 18. 

It was then that I discovered the importance of small coffee houses as a place of mobilization and connection. Then I thought, “Oh, it’s only geared to the affluent.” And I said, “Oh, I don’t like that.” So I moved from Center City, where I went to the University of the Arts, and I had a dream of opening a coffee house. I left college after 2 years, where I was professionally trained as an actor and performer, and I decided to start my first shop in 2009. It was called Leotah's Place and we still have the sign for it hanging in this space. 

That was a really dope place but slumlords weren’t fixing up the building so we were shut down by L&I. So a year later, we opened up Franny Lou’s Porch. I always say “we” because I lean on the community, I lean on other people because I know that I can’t do anything myself. We opened up two weeks before my second child was born. I think I needed her energy, she’s a Taurus, with an Aries rising. I remember when we were getting this space together, it was really cold so we were warming our hands on these construction space heaters while painting the walls.

After that, we were here and we ran the coffee house for 4-ish years. Then, when the pandemic started we figured that out, and we invited two more owners into the business. So now, I am the founder and we have two other owners on hand, both brilliant black women. We are doing this together, and I don’t think I could have gotten through the pandemic without their help. I think we would have probably closed without their support. But it was something we always wanted, a place of horizontal leadership, a more profit-sharing style, which has all been able to be done with the new ownership. This collaborative model has been all about support. 

We decided to share this food and space with the community because I really saw the need for people that are dissimilar to come together and have conflict in a healthy way. I am all about running that edge of let me ask you a difficult question but with a smile. How can we come to a conversation, in a place of love, because we have things to learn from one another? Neither of us holds all the information. My experience is different from yours and my experience is as valid as yours. So how can we understand life a little bit more clearly? This is how I know how to develop community, but some people do it well in the barbershop, the bodega, the garden,  or in the grocery store. There are community spaces all over, but in my culture and my connection to others, this is the place where I feel comfortable engaging others.

I used to think that there are no community spaces in this area, but I later realized they are everywhere and I just might not see it or be involved. I’m not in the rec centers and other spaces, you know?

3. What values are important to you and your business?

There are many values that go into our business but the most important are the local, organic, relational trade, and made with love. These are our values for our products. Our values for each other, which we call our tribe values, are very similar to other things, but they are to love yourself, to love your tribe, and to love your community or your neighbors. I prefer to call our customers neighbors, because everything is financial, but shouldn’t we try to go outside of that because it's a little deeper than a financial transaction, it’s more like a relationship. 

We want to be a place of rest, a place to be simple, healthy, and aware. This can be in the food we eat and the act of slowing down and thinking critically or playing with creativity. Seeing some beauty and social connection. Even during the pandemic, people were locked up in their houses and came in and they hadn’t seen people in like a week. One guy just started crying, I was like, “Yo, are you ok?” and he was like, “I haven't talked to anyone in a week and it just feels so good.” And I was like, “Yes because human connection is a basic need.”

So that’s what we do here, human connection. We invite the marginalized: the elders, families, black and brown, and queer. We focus on them, and we, the owners, are all black women. So, we want to be ourselves and authentic and attract those like us as well.

We have plants everywhere, we have African prints in various places, and we have thrift store mugs, just to make people feel like they’re comfortable and at home. We have the kid's corner, and we have the outside garden. We host events in the garden and give discounts to folks that resonate with our mission with a “tribe discount.”

Photo: Blue at Franny Lou's