Wicks sold the restaurant in 2009 in order to be able to spend more time running the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, which she co-founded eight years earlier.[6] She sold the White Dog Cafe to restaurateur Marty Grims,[10] who opened its second location, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in 2010,[11] and then a third location in Haverford, Pennsylvania in May 2015.[12] A fourth location in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania opened in September, 2020. [13]
A significant amount of the fare purveyed is sourced from local farms that adhere to environmentally-friendly practices in a humane manner.[14] For example, the restaurant sources and uses organic produce when possible, and has used free-range chicken.[15] 10–20% of the company's profits go to fund charities.[14][16]
Under Wicks, White Dog Cafe advocated for social change and has hosted community meetings and lectures covering topics such as foreign policy and health care reform.[14] It has hosted various activist speakers from venues that range from the local community to the magazine The Nation to the American Civil Liberties Union.[14] The restaurant also hosts community tours to educate about the environment, the arts, affordable housing and matters regarding children.[14] It has also hosted annual eco-tours, where people have traveled by bus to visit places such as a water-treatment plant and a family-run farm.[15]
In 2001, Wicks founded a nonprofit organization called the White Dog Cafe Foundation (now White Dog Community Enterprises),[16][17] which focuses on promoting sustainable and humane farms and the provision of local foods in the Philadelphia area.[14]
In 2002, the restaurant sourced 100% of its electricity from wind power sources, becoming the first business in Pennsylvania to do so.[15]
Business Ethics magazine bestowed on the White Dog Cafe the Living Economy Award at its 2002 Business Ethics Awards, "For being an exemplar of the living economy: locally rooted, human scale, stakeholder-owned, and life-serving."[18][19][20]
