Libby Willis

Libby Willis is the chef and co-owner of MeMe’s Diner in Brooklyn, New York. Libby grew up in the restaurant business and was exposed at a young age to its trials and rewards. As a queer business owner in a male-dominated industry, Libby has redefined what it means to create safe space for both her staff and her clientele. She trains every person who works for her to be respectful, sensitive and mindful of the gender identity spectrum and uses hospitality and amazing food as tools toward inclusion. This conversation was recorded on October 18, 2018 at 5:30pm at MeMe’s Diner in Brooklyn, NY.

Gwen Shockey: What was the first space that you ever went to that was predominantly queer or lesbian and what did it feel like to be there?

Libby Willis: Oh my gosh! That is a really good question. I feel like I was probably in queer spaces and wasn’t a hundred percent aware that they were queer spaces or I was there and wasn’t out as a queer person. I always felt really comfortable around queer people. I went to an all-girls high school that was run by queer women.

GS: Oh wow!

LW: (Laughing) Yeah! I went to a utopian high school.

GS: Were they out (the women who ran your school)?

LW: Oh yes. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and the school was tiny. My graduating class was like twenty-four girls. It doesn’t exist anymore though because it wasn’t sustainable. It was so utopian. We had horse-back riding for gym class and acres and acres of property. Not everybody was queer. Most of the girls were straight but we were being taught by queer people so the idea of education was about openness and inclusivity. So, we were in queer spaces all the time, which was really incredible. There was no room for homophobia or transphobia or racism – any of that, because the people who were educating us had grown up with all of this homophobia and countering this just became part of our education, which was really cool! We were taught by a lot of cis women and cis men and a lot of gay men and a lot of feminist men, which was really, really cool. We were reading mostly female-written literature and learning about women’s history – it was incredible.

I went to college, which was when I came out and that was probably where I realized I was in queer spaces and started choosing to be in queer spaces and it made sense and felt like home. It was an emotional and cerebral experience, right? It was like, these are my people, I’m challenged both emotionally and physically, you know?

GS: Was it a decision for you to put yourself in queer spaces or was it happening for you naturally as it did in high-school?

LW: It was happening for me naturally. It sort of started politically for me and I would find myself in groups or in classes that were geared toward political activism or queer theory, so then those were the people I got to know in college and then all of the sudden we were going to gay parties and gay bars and I was like oh yeah, these are my people! I was just really attracted to them! (Laughing)

GS: The best feeling!

LW: Exactly! Shit! I went to college in Chicago but the first gay bar I went to in Cleveland I remember was a bit disappointing. I remember feeling like awwww, all of the women look like Axl Rose here!

GS: Was it a mixed gay bar?

LW: Yeah, it was a mixed gay bar for sure. For sure. It was kind of amazing – I mean the white undershirts, the bandanas…

GS: I feel like that look is coming back. (Laughing)

LW: Yeah, unfortunately. (Laughing) I remember though that there were no lesbian bars in Cleveland. Not at all. Or at least that I knew of. Maybe there were some small, underground lesbian bars that were for adults and not for younger people.

GS: Can I ask around what year you graduated from undergrad?

LW: Yeah! So, I actually didn’t graduate from college but I was in Chicago in 2009 and then I was in Cleveland from 2010 until around 2012 and then I moved to New York. I remember hoping and wishing there was something different from a nightclub that was cheap where you couldn’t really meet anybody and the music was bad, you know? I don’t really like to party! That’s never really been my scene and so I had always sort of wished that there was a place that was just chill and cool and queer.

GS: This seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout most conversations I’ve had. This whole project started a little bit out of nostalgia and sadness that lesbian bars are disappearing but the more I talk to people the more apparent it has become that these spaces were actually really difficult or unhealthy. Generation to generation I think there has been this desire for alternative gathering spaces.

LW: Totally. Absolutely. I think it’s interesting… I am a young person who grew up with a really liberal background and really supported and I think I might have come out earlier had I not been at a women’s high school because I was sort of like, well I don’t really know. I hadn’t really interacted with young guys and I when I did I started realizing I didn’t really want to. There were plenty of girls who were dating boys when I was in high school but I looked like this, I looked like a woman and I thought well, they’re just not really interested. Then I went to college and guys were interested in me and I was like oh no… never mind. (Laughing)

GS: That’s so interesting. I feel like it often happens in an opposite way for people but you were coming of age in this environment where gender and sexuality were so fluid that you didn’t need to label yourself – you could be whatever you wanted to be!

LW: Exactly! I was able to come out when I first fell in love. I was able to say this is why I’m queer, this is why I’m gay, because I feel these things for someone and I made the decision to feel this way. I wasn’t told I had to feel this way, I’m not forcing myself to be in love or to question my feelings all the time and I think I’m better for it and my relationships are better for it, which is really cool. So, thanks mom and dad! (Laughing)

GS: I was lucky to have grown up in a liberal environment too and I often think about younger generations now who are kind of told it’s safe for them to be who they are anywhere but it’s really not and where do you go if you don’t have a community already if there aren’t gay bars or bookstores or community centers?

LW: I think that’s why we have to work really hard to create the idea of empathy and queerness within leadership and management of restaurants and cafes and coffee shops because, yes, queer people are out and our idea of hospitality and how we treat our customers has to change. Before, as a business owner, you assumed that your customer was a white, cis person. You were taught that this is who your customer would be and it’s not true anymore. That’s not who your employees are, it’s becoming unrealistic.

GS: What has your own experience been like in the food industry being so notoriously misogynistic?

LW: Sure! I was raised in a restaurant family! I’m a fourth-generation restaurant owner, which is crazy. On both sides of my family my grandmothers owned restaurants. My parents owned a restaurant with my maternal grandmother, my dad’s brother owns a restaurant – we’ve always been in the food industry. My parents sort of got out of the industry when I was a kid because it’s a really hard lifestyle especially when you have two young children.

GS: What kind of restaurant did they own?

LW: Much like this! A classic neighborhood American restaurant. I grew up with the horror stories from my mother and my father about what it was like to work in a kitchen and how everybody would yell and how everybody was sexist. My mom was emotionally and physically abused by chefs in cooking school and in restaurants. She would tell me that it was a really hard place to work and that’s one of the reasons why they left. I remember always being so sad about that because I really wanted to work in restaurants and wanted to be around food but thinking that my day-to-day would be sad and my parents would be sad for me if I did that too.

GS: That’s heavy!

LW: Yeah! It is. I remember thinking I should pick something else. My parents would tell me food was a hobby, food is the best hobby you can have, let’s keep food happy because working in a restaurant sucks the joy out of it.

GS: How do they feel about MeMe’s?

LW: They’re proud! They’re proud because both Bill Clark and I - Bill’s my business partner - made the decision to make this a place where we wanted to work and where other people wanted to work and that’s through our leadership. When you’re in control you can decide what the atmosphere is and that’s how I ended up happy in the restaurant industry today!

We had a bakery when I was sixteen and we made cupcakes and cakes and pies and things like that! (Laughing) It was cute! It was me, my dad and my mom. My parents really trusted me and it showed me that they thought I was capable. I was the one like selling the product, you know, and working the counter and they’d tell me I was better at it than them! That was cool! I loved it! I’ve always been service-based. I love hospitality. Forever and always.

When I was working in restaurants that were owned by men and run by men – male chefs and line cooks and all of that – I had to put on a warrior suit. I’m a femme woman and I’m seen as a sexual object and the misogyny and the sexual abuse as well as being an out lesbian. I was never ever in the closet about having a girlfriend or dating women or interested in women. It was a constant battle. It was a constant battle over my identity and I thought why is this industry about serving people and making people happy and anticipating people’s needs but it’s such a toxic work environment. How can you do both? How can you treat customers with respect and not treat the people you are working with with respect? I didn’t understand it. I could see that my parents were right, this was really hard and I sort of gravitated toward an industry where women were in charge and that was bakeries. I was really lucky to work for women and it’s a lot different. It’s not to say that the industry isn’t hard or that baking isn’t hard but the sexism isn’t there and that dynamic is just not there.

GS: How many years were you working in male-dominated kitchens?

LW: Probably only for about four years of the like fifteen years that I’ve been in the industry.

GS: Wow!

LW: Yeah! (Laughing) I was making wedding cakes for a long time and that was a whole different thing. I left that industry for a whole other reason which was questioning why am I celebrating these fucking couples who can’t afford these cakes and they’re spending so much money on a day that means nothing… that was a whole other thing. It felt like frivolous work. It feels so frivolous as a queer woman! The women I date are social workers, teachers, doctors you know? All of these people who are like actively making change. I didn’t date like finance lesbians you know? (Laughing)

GS: I’m looking for one of those! (Laughing)

LW: But I left that industry because it felt so fucking frivolous. I couldn’t do it anymore. I was working by myself, I wasn’t leading a team or giving people jobs. That’s how I’ve always been able to kind of rationalize doing these jobs making things that are kind of extraneous you know? It’s important to be to let people express themselves and to give people jobs. But I was making wedding cakes by myself in a dungeon and thinking that it just wasn’t right! So, I moved to New York and started working for a bakery that was owned by two women who also tried to make a social mission out of their job and I was a lot happier for it. Then I started a catering company and was working for myself and then as that catering company was sort of ending, Bill, who I had met at the bakery and who I had become very close to, mentioned wanting to open a bar and he called me and was like, “Hey! I know you have a lot going on right now but I have a lead on a space and I’d really love to have you look at it with me and help me figure this out!” And here we are!

GS: At first MeMe’s was just going to be a bar?

LW: Yeah. When Bill was thinking about doing it solo he was going to open a bar. When we went to see the space - not this space, a different restaurant - we came up with an all-day, more casual diner spot. We lost out on that space and found this one.

GS: One thing that has been written about so much concerning your restaurant is the queer context of it all and how front-facing that is. I’m curious whether that was part of your discussion with Bill when you were initially planning MeMe’s – to have it be a queer establishment?

LW: When we first started talking about what this restaurant meant to us and what it was going to be it wasn’t like queer-as-propaganda or queer-as-pr. The queerness was going to be back-of-house in terms of the way we ran the restaurant. Because our queerness is such a big part of our identities it was always going to be part of the restaurant’s identity just in the way we want to hire queer people, we want to pay attention to hiring people of color and people who have not been afforded the same opportunities that we’ve been afforded. The way that the restaurant functions, it was always going to be a queer restaurant and then because we’re out and because we’re not afraid of our identities and because I personally, and I know Bill does too, want to lead by example! The only way we could be authentic in the identity of this restaurant is to be visible and proud. We had some friends that sort of followed us throughout the process of opening the restaurant and they wrote a story about us and because they’re our friends and because it was a gay magazine, we were like: Well, yeah! This restaurant is fucking gay! That sound bite just shot off, right?

GS: I’m really interested in your description of queerness as hospitality, openness and support within the infrastructure of business management. You seem so mindful of language and of your staff’s interactions with clientele. Do you think you attract a primarily queer customer-base?

LW: My own ideas of what queerness is changes all the time but because we are so vocal and out we do absolutely attract a gay clientele. We are constantly full of queer people. We have a lot of straight customers here too and I think it’s more about how these straight people interact with a queer space. Finally! Right? Like, how cool is that, that straight people are making the choice to come into a space that’s labeled as queer and respect us and respect our space and we’re going to respect them right back!? It’s so fucking powerful. On special occasions we’re a queer restaurant for queer people. On Valentine’s Day for instance there were barely any straight couples! The restaurant was full of queer love on Valentine’s Day. It was incredible. I’ve never walked into a restaurant on Valentine’s Day that was full of gay people. It was amazing. We want to be a space that feels like home for everyone but especially for queer people since still a lot of queer people don’t have families they can go to. One of the coolest parts of being queer is the introduction to chosen family sooner than others. We want to be part of that chosen family and for this to be that chosen family’s table.

GS: Beautifully said! Do you have regulars?

LW: Absolutely! Every day! We have queer people in the neighborhood that come here four times a week. They come here by themselves, they come here with their friends, they come for a drink, they come when they celebrate, they come when they’re sad and that’s why we’re here! It makes me feel incredible. It’s the best part of this. It’s so nice when I meet people who have never read anything about this restaurant, who don’t know anything about it and they come in here and just get what we’re doing and they can pick up on it with no context.

GS: What are some of things you think they are picking up on?

LW: I think just the openness and the smiles. Because we all like each other and we’re all happy and the way we lead our staff is through team work and Bill and I are right there with them, it’s a different feeling – it’s not like you’re sitting at a table and this is your world, you’re sitting in a room with people who are all sharing the same experience. It’s just good vibes. I think it’s different for everybody who comes here but it’s undeniable that it’s easy to be here, which is really important to us. Our staff aren’t nasty and aren’t unhappy. You can sometimes tell when a server comes up to you and they smile when they see you and then they stop because they were told to be nice to the table, given a script and they performed and now they’re done.

GS: You mentioned that you train your staff to use gender neutral pronouns when they interact with the clientele. What does that training look like?

LW: For us it’s so simple. We train front of house and back of house in the same way – we say: We here at MeMe’s are a queer restaurant and to us that means everybody who walks in the door is a customer and nothing is assumed about them. It’s very easy for you to introduce yourself and to say you’ll be with them tonight, I’m Libby and I use she/her pronouns and I’m so excited that you’re here!

GS: Do you ever get customers who have no idea what it means to preface an introduction with pronouns?

LW: Yeah, I think that our servers can read a table though…

Conversation interrupted as Libby stops to say goodbye to one of her line cooks

That’s our amazing Thai grandma of a line cook. She’s the best. She came to us via another person who used to work here who is a good friend of mine who sort of rescued her out of a toxic kitchen and was like, “I know where to bring you!”

GS: This is a safe haven!

LW: It is honestly. Dishwashers and porters are often the most marginalized people in the world – not just the restaurant world but I’m talking about the world, right? They are usually young men of color who have had some interaction with the system. It’s hard to describe but something that brings me a lot of joy is that we’ll get a porter or a dishwasher and we’ll need more and since they’ll pick up on the fact that we’re a gay restaurant they’ll like bring their gays. It’s really cool that these guys who may not be out in their communities get to be queer at work.

GS: This might be kind of a big, lofty question but I’m curious how you see a space like this that as a safe space, as a really fluid, open space, as something that although it’s self-defined as queer isn’t really defined as anything actually – how do you think that serves as a model for businesses moving forward? 

LW: I think that lesbian bars are a really important part of the community and it’s really sad that they’re disappearing but I also think that there is enough room in the hospitality world for non-nightlife to be open and queer and that this is the future of hospitality because as I was saying before there’s no room in hospitality to be homophobic, transphobic, racist or anti-immigrant. There’s just no room for that. I know this is important and that this is the future of non-nightlife, dining and as a community model too. It’s a weird thing because as a person who has gone to a lot of all-female parties and lesbian bars and wondered why all these gay men show up and feeling angry about it then I open a restaurant that is for everyone. It feels almost counter-intuitive or against the community in a way but I think there’s enough room for us to make a positive change for everyone. We’re doing this to make daily life better, we can figure out nightlife.

GS: It’s just becoming more and more apparent that as we are working to shed binary categories a space like this is so important.

LW: When you know that you can’t be so exclusionary in your community you don’t want to go to a place that feels like it’s not open and accepting to all. It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is and how to define ourselves. I couldn’t open a lesbian restaurant and I couldn’t open this restaurant without my business partner and he is a gay man! I needed him and his community just as much as I needed mine. We do have nights that are geared toward queer people and we’re proud of those nights and we will always open our doors to other queer people who want to host parties here and that’s what we continue to do to establish ourselves as queer-preferred. (Laughing)

GS: This was just amazing Libby! Thank you for the work you’re doing!