New Jacksonville coffee shop serves up opportunities as well as coffee, pastries
"Possabilities" top the offerings of a new Jacksonville cafe focused on serving more than just the fresh coffee and scratch-made cookies, brownies and other baked goods featured on its menu.
Happy Brew focuses on providing employment, job training and leadership opportunities for people with Intellectual and Developmental Differences (IDD). The nonprofit cafe recently opened at 3200 Hendricks Ave. in Jacksonville's historic San Marco neighborhood.
"We just want everybody's gifts. Everybody's abilities to be brought together here," Happy Brew director Amy Franks told the Times-Union.
The cafe nestled between Southside Methodist Church and the original Metro Diner is the most recent coffeehouse to open its doors in the area. It's about a mile south of Bitty & Beau's, which also focuses on employing people with disabilities, and neighboring Foxtail Coffee — both on San Marco Square.
"We Brew Possabilities" is the motto and mission of Happy Brew, a nonprofit outreach of Southside Methodist Church. The coffee shop is a vocational program designed so its participants "can learn, grow and work in the way that best meets his or her needs," Franks said.
"We employ and celebrate all abilities … Friendships grow one cup of coffee and one conversation at a time," she said, noting "a great cup of coffee and conversation also foster community, which can collapse barriers and change the world."
Happy Brew offers real-world job training and employment opportunities
Happy Brew, which opened Dec. 9, has about 15 employees with IDD which includes cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.
Franks said the coffee shop has been in the works since 2020 right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
It evolved from Southside Methodist's participation in The Missing Voices Project out of Flagler College's Youth Ministry, which launched the project in 2019 with a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The Missing Voices Project serves youth "on the margins" of the community. Southside Methodist Church was among a dozen congregations statewide to participate in the project. It decided to focus on IDD students and young adults in Jacksonville, said Franks, who also is the church youth director.
Franks said they sought input from dozens of families including IDD youth and adults to determine what was wanted and needed to best serve them.
That input led to the cafe offering real-world job training and employment opportunities. In addition, the building was designed to have more accessible bathroom facilities, extra-wide automatic doors and furnishings such as adjustable tables to accommodate all types of wheelchairs and walkers.
The art on the walls, she said, was created by someone with intellectual differences.
"With every aspect and as we grow, we want every facet to reflect someone's ability," Franks said.
In January the group plans to start an internship program so IDD students can be trained and then introduced to other local businesses as potential employees.
'I can be myself': Cafe a comfortable fit for employees
Mickie Mullings loves her job. The 28-year-old specializes in customer service as a Happy Brew point of sales manager during the busy early morning shift from 6 to 10 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Mullings has spastic diplegia cerebral palsy which means she has constant, chronic muscle tightness in her legs making it challenging to move without the aid of a walker. Nonetheless, it doesn't slow her down at the coffee shop.
She's had four previous jobs including working in the corporate world. Happy Brew has been "one of the best possible experiences and opportunities that God has blessed me with," Mullings said.
"I feel like I'm able to come here and I feel like I'm a part of a family and I feel like I'm part of a deeper purpose. … Before now, I've never really felt I would work in a place that allows me to be myself, where I'm comfortable. We're all part of a team and I don't have to feel stress or anxiety … It's really amazing here," she said.
Coffee shop focuses on what employees can do, not what they can't
Stacy Tetschner smiled with pride while watching and photographing his 21-year-old son Raymond on the job as a barista at Happy Brew during the grand opening. The younger Tetschner, who has Down syndrome, was helping co-workers and racing to clean tables in the dining room for new guests.
"We are incredibly proud of him. Especially him having the opportunity to work in this community and have meaningful employment that means something to him as well as the people he is serving," Tetschner said of his son who lives on his own and also works part-time at Bitty & Beau's.
"The beauty of Happy Brew for us has been that they have tailored things to the kids' strengths. They work with them to find out 'what do you want to do?' and then they are engaging them in the jobs where they have strengths and can be successful," he said.
Tetschner said Happy Brew concentrates on what people with disabilities can do as opposed to the more common approach of what they can't do.
On the menu at Happy Brew
Happy Brew's menu features scratch-made brownies, muffins, cookies, bagels and other baked goods as well as fresh coffee, espresso, teas and other beverages. The coffee shop has its own coffee, Friends Blend, which is available packaged.
The coffee shop's pastry case features Caleb's Cookies from Jacksonville's Caleb Prewitt, a teen entrepreneur and triathlete with Down syndrome.
Pastries from Blueberry Artisan Bakery of Jacksonville as well as Crispy King Treats, a Chattahoochee Hills, Ga., bakery that employs people with IDD, also are offered.
Happy Brew is open from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
Teresa Stepzinski is the dining reporter for the Times-Union. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @TeresaStepz or reach her via email at tstepzinski@jacksonville.com.
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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Happy Brew coffee shop opens in Jacksonville's San Marco
