AFRO
Nicholas Mitchel and Christopher Landrum are the duo that comprise Noisy Tenants, a community-centered production agency based in Baltimore. Production, for them, does not necessarily imply film-making all the time. The partners look at each project they undertake through a production lense, but their primary goal is to empower community members who are often overlooked.
They seek to reduce the number of aspirations that are suspended because of inequity and lack of resources, and their restaurant Noisy Burger is no exception to that. “It’s about creating this community and this world that we want to live in and operating in a way based on how we would want to do business,” said Nicholas Mitchel.
8 - 5 - 2021
NOISY BURGER PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY TO CITY SCHOOL STUDENTS
THE BALTIMORE TIMES
1 - 15 - 2021
BLACK OWNED BURGER JOINT ‘NOISY BURGER’ BRINGS SAUCE TO REMINGTON PERMANENTLY
Noisy Burger first made its debut at R House, a trendy food hall in the Remington neighborhood in 2017. The then weeklong pop-up was a partnership between students in the modern culinary arts program at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School and Noisy Tenants, a local firm, which offers project management, program development, and media production services founded by Nicholas Mitchel and Chris Landrum. In the first pop-up edition of Noisy Burger, students developed the concept, menu, operated the restaurant, and set records for sales at R House. “I think that record still stands,” Nicholas Mitchel said.
Chris Landrum and Nicholas Mitchel are two virtuous Black men who are passionate about food, their community and the youth therein. They are self-proclaimed, “Loud Dreamers.” When asked why they started it all, the duo respond nearly in tandem, “We want youth to be able to build a portfolio of work in order to be able to go on to the next thing— to come full circle a couple of our hires that we worked with a few years ago are already looking for opportunities and we plan to give opportunities to them since they know what we are all about already.”
BALTIMORE SUN
Bradford is known for launching social service programs in cities with major exhibitions of his art. In his native Los Angeles, he created a nearly 20,000-square-foot community arts center that works with youths in foster care. In Venice, he set up a storefront where current and former inmates could sell the wares they made while imprisoned. In Baltimore, he has launched the Greenmount West Power Press and has committed to providing the funding and on-site support for three years.
“Do you have enough ink?” Bradford asked Kirsten Fonseca, 8. “I used to do silkscreening when I was your age. I loved it.”
The Power Press is a collaboration between Bradford, the museum, the community center and the grassroots community organization Noisy Tenants. The youngsters receive free after-school and summer programs that help them build leadership skills and learn self-sufficiency. The kids will demonstrate their silk-screening expertise from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the museum during public festivities celebrating the opening of Bradford’s exhibit.
9 - 20 - 2018
ARTIST BRADFORD, BMA, & GREENMOUNT WEST LAUNCH SILK SCREENING PROJECT
TEEN VOGUE
8 - 27 - 2018
MEET THE PEOPLE EMPOWERING BALTIMORE TEENS WITH DIRT BIKES, BURGERS, AND YOGA
A lot of people wouldn't take the time of the day to do what they did,” Jenae Hall, 18, says of Chris Landrum and Nicholas Mitchel, the duo who helped her and her classmates open a burger shop. “Most of the time, [adults] try to make us do it on our own without a lot of guidance. A lot of us need guidance.”
To volunteer with the students at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore, Landrum and Mitchel, of local organization Noisy Tenants, first had to gain their trust. The students were used to adults coming into their classrooms and making promises they were unable to keep. Students had gotten their hopes up about new computers, textbooks, and other school materials several times before Landrum and Mitchel arrived with the idea of helping them conceive and run their own pop-up restaurant. The teens weren’t used to feeling like their ideas and passions were taken seriously.
The students eventually opened and ran the restaurant, Noisy Burger, in 2017, managing a rush of hungry locals who visited the pop-up space. Executing the business plan was about more than serving burgers: It was a chance for students to utilize the skills that they already possessed in new and unexpected ways, and a reminder that there are people in their community who believe in them.
BALTIMORE SUN
4 - 27 - 2017
BALTIMORE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OPEN ‘POP UP’ RESTAURANT IN REMINGTON
A dozen Baltimore high school students have transformed an empty kitchen at a Remington food hall into a bustling burger restaurant with a line of customers.
After months of planning — writing a concept proposal, designing logos and creating recipes and a menu — the Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School class is serving customers from a "pop-up" space at R. House.