Coffee Chain Creating Jobs For The Disabled

by Karen Shimizu

Food &Wine

   Bitty & Beau’s is a civil rights movement disguised as a coffee shop.
   Bitty & Beau’s has everything you could want from a neighborhood café. The coffee is hot and strong, there’s ample seating, and the free wifi encourages you to linger.

   But the experience it offers is rare indeed: It’s a coffee shop dedicated to advancing the inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the workplace.

   Founders and CEOs Amy and Ben Wright opened the coffee chain after their third child, Beau, and their fourth child, Bitty, were born with Down syndrome. When their children were young, they started taking a hard look around at the opportunities for people with disabilities and were dismayed at what they saw. 

   “One of the things we were shocked to learn years ago was that 80 percent of people with disabilities didn’t have jobs in our country,” said Amy. “We didn’t want our kids growing up in a world that didn’t think they should have the same opportunities as other people. We thought, ‘How can we reshape the way society thinks about people with disabilities so that it is a natural decision to include someone with a disability in their workplace?’”

   Whenever people spent time with Bitty and Bea, the Wrights realized, they started to understand Down Syndrome and see people with disabilities differently. What if they magnified that effect by increasing the scale?

    In 2016, the Wrights opened the first Bitty & Beau’s in Wilmington, North Carolina, hired 19 individuals with disabilities, and started serving coffee.

   In almost no time, they realized they were onto something. Three days in, the Rachel Ray show came calling; the resulting coverage catapulted them into public consciousness. Lines streamed out the door every day. Six months after they opened, Bitty & Beau’s moved into a space 10 times larger than its original location. Today, there are 20 Bitty & Beau’s across 11 states and Washington, D.C., employing more than 400 people with Down syndrome, autism, and other disabilities.

   When it comes to hiring and training staff, no coffee shop or hospitality experience is required. Instead, the Wrights look for enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. “You have to stop expecting that you’re going to plug somebody into a hole and be more open-minded and say, ‘Let’s see what they’re good at, and let’s help them find their way here,’” Amy said.

   The same goes for managers and franchise partners: “Do you want to see these individuals thrive and be successful, and do everything you can to help them get there? I can teach you how to clean the ice machine, as long as you have the head and the heart to help make it a successful day for them.”

   Bitty & Beau’s pays all of its workers above minimum wage with opportunities for raises and promotions. Many have parlayed their experience at the café to other jobs, while others have advanced within the company. 

   But the larger goal of the café remains modeling inclusivity and cultivating a sense of connection that extends beyond the café walls, Amy said. “While we’ve created all these jobs, the greater purpose of the coffee shop is that experience that the guest has. Because when they come in and they spend time with people taking their order, making their drinks, talking to them across the bar, they start to see that person differently. And you can’t unsee that, right? So you go back to your own life and you think, ‘Gosh, why have I never thought about hiring someone with Down syndrome?’ And hopefully that kicks off the ripple effect in their own business.”

   Eight years in, the Wrights feel like they’re just getting started. “My ultimate goal is that people with and without disabilities are working side by side in every workplace,” Amy said. “If this is the bridge to get us there, then let’s keep opening as many portals as we can so people can get that mindset.”