“They call me a chef,” said Courtney Boyd with a chuckle, almost in disbelief.
“I am not a chef.”
Patrons of Triple Bottom Brewing in West Poplar, however, might disagree with Boyd’s modest claim. His white bean dip and his French onion grilled cheese sandwich get rave reviews.
“I like the idea of seeing people’s faces when they’re enjoying the food,” said Boyd, a member of Triple Bottom’s food prep and snack team. “I enjoy that people appreciate it, and sometimes you get those compliments back.”
Boyd was one of Triple Bottom’s first hires, joining the brewery before it opened at Ninth and Spring Garden streets in 2019. He had no prior experience in the hospitality industry.
Just two years earlier, Boyd was in prison. He was serving a juvenile life sentence but was released following two major U.S. Supreme Court decisions — Miller v. Alabama in 2012, and Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016. The former held that mandatory life sentences without possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders; the latter made it retroactive.
To Triple Bottom, Boyd having a felony on his record wasn’t a deal-breaker. That’s because the brewery is a “fair chance” business. The city's Fair Chance Hiring Initiative integrates formerly incarcerated people into the workforce by referring them for open positions and giving financial incentives to businesses that hire them.
“I really [have seen] how a job can change your life in a way that I think is actually pretty universal,” said Tess Hart, Triple Bottom’s CEO.
Before focusing on the brewery full-time, Hart had been working with nonprofit organizations that wanted to implement fair-chance hiring.
When she co-founded Triple Bottom with her husband, Bill, and head brewer Kyle Carney, adopting a fair-chance employment model was a priority.
“People talk about ‘second-chance’ hiring,” Hart said, “[but] we wanted to use the phrase ‘fair chance,’ because a lot of folks were never given a single chance.”
It created exactly the kind of environment Boyd was looking for after he returned home from prison.
“They had in them something that I wanted to be a part of, you know. Just some good natured people,” Boyd said. “And I just wanted to be a part of this and have this opportunity.”
Boyd first learned about Triple Bottom through the Philadelphia-based Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project. The nonprofit helps match formerly incarcerated people with fair-chance employers.
Boyd said he didn’t face many obstacles getting the job. Not all formerly incarcerated people are as fortunate.
Having a felony is “like a scarlet letter,” said John Pace, YSRP’s senior reentry coordinator.
“People take the position: ‘Why should I give you this job when people that didn't commit a crime are deserving of the same opportunity?’ And so you have these barriers against you.”
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Pace, a Philadelphia native, would know. He is a former juvenile lifer himself.
When Pace was 17, he was involved in a robbery that went wrong. Ten days later, the victim died from his injuries. Pace was charged with homicide and ultimately sentenced to life in prison.
“There's a lot of shame about poor decisions that you made,” said Pace. “You don't want to be remembered like that. You want to demonstrate that ‘I was better than that.’”
Pace spent 31 years in prison. During that time, he took advantage of a Villanova University bachelor’s degree program for incarcerated people
Pace knew that if he ever got out, he would try to give back.
“I knew I couldn't change some of the past decisions I made that contributed to someone's life, unfortunately, being taken,” he said, “but what I could do was demonstrate that I was not that person, that I was better than that person. But also, in terms of moving forward, I could help others to not make the same mistakes I made.”
Pace now serves as an ambassador for YSRP. He helps humanize success stories.
“I've actually sat down with some CEOs before, and I said, ‘Let me sit you amongst these individuals and let you get to know who they really are,’” he said. “Because what I find is that, when they sit down and really get to know who the individuals are, they have a different perception.”
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Pace estimates that YSRP has placed four or five formerly incarcerated people at Triple Bottom Brewery over the last three years.
“A fair-chance business is part of the solution to helping people really lift themselves up out of poverty,” said Triple Bottom’s Hart. “It is energizing our whole local economy. It's building the tax base, which then helps the city fix all the problems that it needs to fix. The ripple effects are huge.”
Especially for someone like Boyd, who was able to escape a cycle of reincarceration.
“This is my first chance, actually,” he said, “because when I went away, I was a kid offender. Now I'm a grown man. So that's the thing I understand most.”
