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Philly native Matt Cahn opened Middle Child, a sandwich spot in the heart of his city, to celebrate a culinary intermediate that he didn’t see: lunch food somewhere in between fine dining and cheap-eats. In fall 2021, Cahn expanded his business, opening Middle Child Clubhouse, where he brought his unique culinary taste to dinner as well. Cahn spoke with FORM about the importance of community and the creative roots that inspire his menu.

Jackson Muraika: So could you tell me a bit about your background? Where are you from and how did you get involved with food?

Matt Cahn: I was always obsessed with food my whole life, particularly cheap eats. Fine dining was never my thing. I just love street food and delis and hoagies. My whole life, I was kind of obsessed.

I always joked around with my friends about opening a sandwich shop. I remember in college I did a sandwich draft, you know, to be like, what would our menu be if you only had five items and that kind of thing…It’s like playing marry, fuck, kill with hoagies, sandwiches we know and love. You know, all those things — I was kind of obsessed.

I was an English major in college…I was going to be a professor and then moved to New York to work in advertising. I did an internship at DDB and ended up really falling in love with it. So after my internship, I applied for a couple of gigs and got an account exec position at Deutsche, which is about as big and creative as you can be for an agency, like Mad Men style.

I worked there for a little while, and got a little sick of it. So I quit and used the money that I had saved up to go travel around Asia and ate a shit ton of food there. That was always the thing for me; I go to a place and I just like to eat my face off. Everywhere I go I eat crazy food. I just love trying anything.

So I came back and I moved to Colorado for a year to do the ski season and had to pick up a gig there. There weren’t a lot of creative gigs. I couldn’t find anything in copywriting or account exec or whatever. So, I just started flipping burgers. The rent was cheap…I could live off it, as long as I had my ski pass. I was good. I was flipping burgers and just really loved it. I worked the register some nights. And it felt really natural to me. I really liked making people happy.

And, I like to serve the people. You know, I fell in love with it. And then afterwards, I moved back to New York. I worked at Court Street grocers which is probably the greatest sandwich shop of all time. I worked there for a couple of years—worked my way from register guy to cook, then to prep cook, then to kitchen manager, then to manager.

While I was there I was also doing double duty and working at Superiority Burger front-of-house which was like a vegan burger spot Run by Chef Brooks Hadley who was like the whole pastry chef from Del Posto. So yeah, really really fancy high-quality like Michelin star. I kept working at Court Street and was sort of joking around looking for some spaces in Philly.

I was always really wary of opening a sandwich shop in Philly because there’s so many. Sandwiches are so blue collar and lunch food is so important to the community. There’s so much competition. It’s so good. But, the New York problem started to happen…a lot of the places that I grew up going to started closing. Snow White Diner closed, and Little Pete’s Diner closed and Salivarius, which was my favorite hoagie shop, closed. I was kind of like: What the fuck is going on? Why are these places closing and Starbucks opening up? We really should maintain that sense of community. So, I had written a business plan on my own and found, in Philly, a space with really cheap rent that was a lunch spot that was basically turnkey, meaning I didn’t have to do any construction to it… So, I moved home with my parents as I started redoing the space. And, yeah, got Middle Child open. And the rest was history, I guess.

JM: What you said about the modesty of the food scene in Philly is really interesting. My mom went to college in Philadelphia and told me about the food truck she would frequent when she was a student there. But there is also an element of pushing the culinary envelope at Middle Child.

MC: There are two sorts of opposite tendencies, right? It’s like one is to serve a community, which means to know everybody’s name, have good relationships with the neighborhood that we work in, do donation efforts, internally having a good relationship amongst our staff, and then a desire to make really interesting food… Making really interesting food costs a lot of money.

So for Middle Child, and sort of always, [there’s] a balance between pushing the envelope, while at the same time, maintaining about a $13 price point for our sandwiches… We want to be really creative and create cool shit, but we don’t want to make it so weird that we are pricing or sort of boxing out, you know, a nurse from the Northeast who grew up on cheesesteak. So what we’re always trying to do is to push the envelope while also creating a sense of community.

It’s like being like the people shop versus being, you know, the chef’s shop. And I feel like we end up falling somewhere in between because what we’re doing is like, we always base our dishes on classics and things that people know and love, you know, a turkey club, a bowl of pho. Inspiration can come from different places, it doesn’t have to be a sandwich. We can kind of push that further, in simple ways that are low barrier to entry. We’re not making a duck pate club. Just making a cranberry miso club. So it’s like a little bit more dry, a little bit sweet. It’s got avocado on it. It’s a little more modern in that way. We’re able to sort of maintain that $13 price point but we can feed the chefs, and we can feed the nurses.

JM: With Middle Child Clubhouse, you now have a bigger space and can expand your menu to dinner, offer drinks and that sort of thing. How has it been to have fewer constraints in terms of size and what you can offer as far as food?

Yeah, it’s a new set of constraints and it’s a new sort of pressure, right? Before, we used to only have to sell 16 seats at a time, we had to do a lot of volume to make money, but now I have to fill 120 seats. So I have to be a little bit more conscious of what people want, right? Like, I can’t just do freaky shit anymore. Because, I can’t fill those seats. I need to have a burger on the menu, I need to have a Caesar salad on the menu. It’s sort of similar things that keep people coming back. And now we have tables of eight. So before, if somebody comes in with their mom, and their mom doesn’t like it, I’m like: “Sorry, Mom.” Now, someone comes over the table of six and their grandmother, their mom, and I have to figure out how to make them all happy. So that’s a challenge. At the same time, it is so rewarding to have an opportunity to make dinner.

We just get to do so many things that influence us [with Clubhouse] and Middle Child. One is very small. Before it was like, I go on a trip and I come back, and I’m like, here are fucking 100 things I want to do. We don’t have a lot of space, we have cooking limitations, labor limitations, space limitations. We cook everything out of Middle Child from an induction burner and one oven, which is crazy. And with Clubhouse, we were able to expand that in so many ways. I could come up with something and be inspired by something and do it as a cheap turkey sandwich, or I could do it as a beautiful ceviche. It’s really rewarding to be able to do that.

JM: I love how you constantly add new things to the menu or release things short-term. It feels like a constant creative expression of food.

MC: No doubt. I mean it’s vital; it’s the only thing that keeps me going. We’ll get to that place where we sort of have a menu that’s finished. And we maybe only have one special going at a time. But that’s years down the road. Like, that’s what happened with Middle Child, like, things changed everyday at Middle Child and five years later, I found what I love here. I’m gonna move on to making higher quality dinner. And then from there, you know, we’ll see what happens next. I’m super ADD, super driven and want to keep things changing. I don’t like stasis. I want people to come in every time and expect something different. It’s just fucking fun.

JM: Like I mentioned before, the theme of this issue is kin. You talked a bit about this relationship between you and your staff. Five years in, what has your Middle Child experience taught you about fostering relationships?

MC: For me, it’s absolutely something not a damn thing without the people who come in and people who work for us, and that there is no amount of money that I can make that would make me happy [while] not having my customers happy, and not having my employees happy. So at this point in my career it’s like, I could take it, and I could go try to franchise it, or I could do whatever it is to try to make money off of it. But that’s not what it is. I want to create a sense of community. And like, that’s what restaurants were, when they were diners, and delis, and foster shops. So, I think maybe I won’t make as much money as [I could], but that’s fine. If my employees are happy, they’re feeling well paid. They’re taking care of their benefits. They don’t work 60 hours a week. All of my cooks work 40 hours a week. The executive chef works 50 hours a week, Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. There’s a quality of life that we have, you know.

JM: Beyond the food, the look and personality of the restaurants is very palpable. And I’ve seen that you collaborated with a local web designer to create an incredible website and worked with a furniture designer for the sign outside [Middle Child]. How have you collaborated with other people to realize your vision for the restaurants?

MC: Yeah, I mean, restaurants can’t just be about the food anymore. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t put the exact same attention into my sign as I do my sandwiches, you know. The level of detail that I have and want to have doesn’t stop with the food that we serve. That’s just a lifestyle I have. I want things to be great; I want them to be beautiful, I want to collaborate, you know. Sometimes I collaborate with other chefs, and sometimes I collaborate with other artists. I want to use Middle Child as a platform, not just for myself, but for everybody around me, you know, going back to the idea of community. Like, why would I pay a big corporate sign painter to come in and make a sign for me when I can find a local Philadelphia artist to come do it and use my platform on Instagram to post about them, so that people know, maybe they make more money and then they can put people on. So I always just think about it as rising tides. I’m happy and blessed that people have supported us and that we have a platform, and I can use that platform to give people the same opportunity.

JM: What does the name ‘Middle Child’ mean to you?

MC: It was just a couple things. My initials are MC. So I thought that was cute. But that’s not where I started. That was just by chance.

Yeah, so basically, we chose Middle Child because lunch was our main thing, and it was the middle child between breakfast and between dinner. Everybody wakes up wanting to eat breakfast. And then they’re really excited to make reservations for dinner, but they eat whatever crap for lunch, because they’re just eating at their desk. And I was like, we could do that. We could do a better option for somebody to eat at their desks…We were kind of like outcasts. We weren’t quite cheap eats, and we weren’t quite fine dining. So, I felt like we were the middle child of the industry.

Monica and Daniel Edwards of Morehead Manor see their hospitality work placing them as ambassadors of the Durham, NC community. Having lived in Durham for thirty years, the couple cherises sharing their extensive knowledge and connection to the city with visitors. Their bed and breakfast puts them in a unique position to explore a passion for design while experiencing the excitement of human connection through hospitality.

Anna Rebello: One of the biggest appeals of a bed and breakfast like this is the charm and the character that comes with a house that has some age. When you were starting the inn, how did you come across this space?

Monica Edwards: It was something we fell into, I guess you could say. Back in 1995, we had our first stay at a bed and breakfast. Ever since Daniel and I had been together, we’ve had people living with us. We planned parties and events. When I got to the Inn, I was like, “Man, we could do this and get paid for it.”

Whenever Daniel was not working as a police officer, he would do artsy projects like redoing the house, and I would farm him out to friends and family. He would say, “I’m not sure I’m good at what I do. You can’t tell me I’m good because you’re not a professional.”

Daniel eventually went to work for Jack Mitchell of Mitchell’s Designs, who had been an interior designer in Durham for over 50 years. It didn’t take two weeks for Jack to tell him “Daniel, I’ve worked with a lot of people, and I’ve never seen anybody with as much talent as you.”

Daniel told Jack that he was looking for the perfect place to open a [bed and breakfast]. Jack asked him where would want it to be and how much money he had—to which my husband said, “I have no idea, but I know it’s the right place when I see it.” Over the course of their conversation, this property came to mind, but it was not for sale. Jack knew the owner at the time, so Daniel asked Jack to help set up a meeting between them.

Edgar Thomas, the owner at the time, described the intimate details of the house. He talked about the Italian marble and where this bookshelf came from. Daniel kept pointing across every room saying, “We’re going to do this here, and this here.” He had found the perfect place. Daniel is a visionary. I’ve learned to trust his sight because he can see way past what I can imagine.

We get in the car after the tour, and my eyes are glazed over because I’m totally overwhelmed. Starting a [bed and breakfast] was something we’re supposed to do closer to retirement. This was August 1996. I wasn’t in a position to retire at 30.

But, I immediately started making an outline as if we’re going to start this bed and breakfast. We needed a business plan, we had to get financing, we had to do all these things. It took us from August to October to negotiate a price for the house. We closed on the house in February of 1997, and we opened our doors in April.

AR: When you first opened your bed and breakfast, how did your background in the hospitality industry help you ease into running your business?

ME: I graduated in 1984 with a degree in Human Resource Management from East Carolina University, and ECU was one of the first universities to offer a business administration major with a concentration in human resource management. Working with accounting and being in finance helped me a lot because I needed to know how to do financials to run our bed and breakfast.

AR: With an old house, you guys have done a great job of highlighting the historic charm of it. What is its history?

ME: We’re the fourth owner and third family to own this house. The house was built in 1892 by James Cobb, who was one of Durham’s founding tobacconists. When he passed away in the mid 1930s, Edgar Thomas’ father bought the house from Cobb’s widow. He lived here with his family until he passed away in the mid 60s. Then, Edgar Jr., his oldest son, bought out his brothers and sisters to live in this house. That’s who we bought the house from when we started our bed and breakfast journey.

AR: Do you constantly want to rearrange or improve the inn, or do you feel like you’ve settled in a good system for the time being?

DE: This property is 112 years old. By the time I finish my last project, something else needs my attention. My ultimate goal is to create a space that feels like we’re on vacation every day. I want it to feel like such a wonderful space that when guests arrive, they’re surprised.

AR: Where have you found the most exciting projects in renovating the inn? What have you liked the most about making this space your own?

DE: My best renovation is always the last space I worked on. That’s where I find my joy. Right now, it’s the side porch. Finalizing the end result of a project is therapy for me. That feeling kept me from becoming the police officer that we see on the news—who is cynical and who doesn’t trust themselves or anyone else. Designing and renovating gave me the opportunity to remain a healthy person.

Space wise, I love the design of this building. I love old homes; I love their architecture. This space has given me a palette that I can play with.

AR: When you were growing up, was there anything that inspired your eye for design?

DE: My mother used to tell me I was going to break the legs off the furniture, because every Friday when I was younger, I would rearrange my bedroom. I was immersed in Feng Shui before I even knew what that word meant. My foundation was about creating a feeling. I have dubbed myself as a Black Ricardo Montalban—in giving people something that they have at home but presenting in such a way that it feels special.

ME: At Morehead Manor, we try to put things in place for guests to make their stay an enjoyable experience that they didn’t know was really needed.

AR: The all-encompassing mission of Morehead Manor is having elegance, excitement, and hospitality meet. How do you feel connected with that idea in the day-to-day operations of hosting guests at the Inn?

ME: One of the things that stood out to us when we were frequently staying in bed and breakfasts was when the innkeepers checked us in, we oftentimes didn’t see them anymore after that. The next morning, they would serve breakfast, but then you were left at your leisure.

Daniel and I see ourselves as ambassadors to the city of Durham. When we check in people in the afternoon, the first thing I ask is if this is their first time in Durham. And if they don’t already have dinner plans, I always offer to give recommendations. We like to sit down with our guests at breakfast time and ask about their plans for the day and what they’d like to see while they’re here.

AR: Do you find yourself keeping your recommendations local when advising the guests on what to do during their stay?

ME: Because we’ve been here 25 years, we have developed relationships with other small businesses over the period of time. Durham has many restaurants, so Daniel and I try to visit the restaurants that we refer people to.

DE: Another thing we have done and we’re looking at starting up again in the spring is a scavenger hunt in the city of Durham, which involves many of the small local businesses, acting as a self-guided tour.

ME: Between the Durham Bulls baseball team, the Durham Performing Arts Center, and the local festivals, there’s always something going on. By connecting with other businesses on social media, we keep tabs on what’s happening in the area so we can make timely recommendations for our guests.

AR: There’s no doubt that the pandemic heavily impacted the hospitality industry—especially when it came to people being comfortable enough to leave their houses. What were some of the effects of the pandemic on running the inn?

ME: During the pandemic, we launched a campaign called “Stay Safe, Stay Small, Stay Inn.” At that time, there were a lot of hotel goers that converted to staying in b&bs. As a smaller establishment, people felt safer staying with us because there was going to be less traffic and not as many people staying on our property.

AR: How are you able to balance your work life and your personal life when it’s all so intertwined?

ME: Running the inn has become a lifestyle. We try to set up the inn to be self-sufficient. Once we check in and show around our guests, they have access to a digitized Guest Services book that has a link to the local visitors guide. Even with that, we’re still a call or text away if our guests need something.

We enjoy the lifestyle that we’ve grown accustomed to here at the inn. Even when we have difficult days, to me, it’s a blip in the schedule to make us appreciate all the other good days that we’ve had.

DE: That’s what it’s about, that appreciation. One of our guests asked us, “How does it feel to be African-American doing what we do at the level at which we do it?” It’s very humbling. Understanding the history of a city like Durham, we see that this is magical. I take no guests or day for granted.

AR: You two have built an environment in the inn that truly represents family and hospitality. Where do you find moments of kinship in your everyday operations at Morehead Manor?

ME: In interactions with our guests, because we find that we’re more alike than we are different, no matter where they are from. One year for Duke’s Parents Weekend, two families that sat near each other in the breakfast room were from opposite ends of the block at home and they didn’t know each other. They met their neighbors here, and now they go back to California and they’re friends.

DE: It’s all about connection. Connecting, as a model, is simple: Be a nice human.

ME: Our home is also our business. We have a personal life, too, so we try to incorporate our guests into those things. Like every Thursday night is bocce night at the inn. If Daniel and I have friends over and we’re out in the garden, and guests come out, we welcome them to join us.

AR: How have you been able to make a name for yourself in a city like Durham?

ME: Word of mouth is key. Durham has a lot of people, especially since the pandemic, that have concentrated more on supporting locally owned businesses, because they understand the importance of keeping money local. There is definitely a cohesive community here.

AR: Daniel, what was your experience like growing up in Durham? How have you seen the city change throughout your life, especially since you started the inn?

DE: We’re legacies of the Black Wall Street.

ME: Daniel’s mom graduated from the Old Hillside High School. She was a participant of the Great Migration in the 1950s: when Blacks graduated from high school in the South, they migrated to the North for better opportunities.

A lot of Blacks that matriculated to the North have moved back south. Nobody returns to the North, but everyone comes back to the South. That’s basically what Daniel’s mother did; he was back in Durham before he graduated from high school.

DE: Durham has since done a 180: population wise, culturally, the overall design and feel. We have new attitudes that are bringing a lot more opportunities.

On one hand, that’s a good thing. On the other hand, there are some who can’t afford to stay here through gentrification. It’s a struggle. We’re fortunate enough to be somewhere in the middle where we can hold on.

Durham was the first place I’ve experienced racism. At some point, you need to know what it feels like, in order to really tie things together for yourself. Durham has given me wonderful opportunities to get to know me.

It was our fate to be here. When we purchased this property, Durham had less than 100 people living downtown. Since then, Downtown has exploded, which has allowed us to be close enough to be a part of it.

AR: …But not too close to where things are stepping on your toes.

ME: Exactly. The beautiful thing about our location is that guests can come here and park their cars and walk to all the things downtown. We tell our guests if they’re having a date night or going to the DPAC, it’ll take you less time to walk down there and back than to deal with parking your car or calling an Uber.

This particular neighborhood is historically designed. We’ve historically designated it so that you can’t just come and put up a convenience store across the street.

AR: Maintaining that integrity is not always the easiest thing to do. Those innovations might be very fruitful for a business, but in maintaining the motto you have here at

Morehead Manor—“keeping the elegance and excitement in hospitality”—there’s clearly a lot of value in sticking to the classics.

DE: It doesn’t have to be extra: Do the basics well, make sure it’s functional. You can’t go wrong with that. So now it’s just a matter of choice: How can we create a space that people want to be a part of?

I have dubbed Morehead Manor as a charging station. We go out and give all this energy by connecting with people and living our lives. You have to reset, and this space allows people to do that.