I’d spent the night just north of St. Augustine. I wanted to get past Jacksonville near the end of rush hour and thought I’d treat myself to good coffee once I’d made it through the freeway and highway mess. So I looked online for a coffeehouse just beyond the tangle of pavement.
There were several spots toward the north end of the city, but one sounded familiar: Bitty and Beau’s Coffee. Why in the world did I recognize the name of a coffeehouse nearly 2,000 miles from home?
I clicked on the link and remembered exactly why I knew it. It had been on the news numerous times, and for sure I was headed there!
Bitty and Beau’s is a special kind of coffeehouse employing special needs people. As a former special ed teacher and someone with special needs people in the family, this place was right up my alley.
I pulled into a spot right in front of the coffeehouse and went inside to order. A young woman, Lexi, took my order and handed me a playing card, the nine of hearts. She said they’d call out that card when my latte was ready.
Lexi was friendly, polite, and full of smiles while she took my order. She said she loves working there and had been working there since it opend in November of 2022.
Another employee, Andrew, has also been there since the coffeehouse opened. He says likes marking prices on the goods for sale and he also likes that he gets a lot of steps in his day.
I spoke to Lissie Hurst, the owner and manager. Lissie got involved because she’s a former special ed teacher and has an autistic son. She was delighted when she learned she could get a Bitty and Beau’s francishe. She knew it would be a perfect place for her son to have a job.
Lissie told me Lexi remembers all the reguals. She can call them by name and even remembers the drinks they order, which is better than I could do.
Soon a third employee came in. Raymond had just visited his brother in Colorado and was proud that he’d flown alone for the first time. He happily showed Lexi and Andrew some photos he’d taken.
Before I left, I put a pin on the map to indicate someone from Naco, Arizona, had visited the shop. Pins show there have been visitors from every US state plus Canada, Mexico, and countries in Central and South America as well as Europe.
After I’d finished my latte, which was very good, and finished chatting with the employees, I headed on north.
A week later in Savannah, I stopped at another Bitty and Beau’s. Jeff Sanders is the manager and has been with the company for just a month and a half. Emelda has been there since it opened in 2019 and says she’s the one who trained Jeff.
Jeff’s another former special ed teacher who got frustrated that his students aged out of high school and there were no services or jobs for them. He feels good about his move to manage the Savannah Bitty and Beau’s.
Max has also been at the coffeehouse since it opened, and he confided that he helped train Jeff too. He likes the job because, “It helps people like me.”
The store has fourteen employees including a shift supervisor who has a develpmentally delayed family member.
Jeff said employees here, like the ones in Jacksonville, remembered the names of the regulars as well as their favorite drinks. He said in addition to the regulars, a number of tourists happen to wander in, and hopefully, they leave slightly changed.
He was delighted to tell me that just three weeks previously, two employees had gotten married!
And here, I also added a pin to the map.
Bitty and Beau’s, “A Human Rights Movement Disguised as a Coffeeshop.”
Emilie Vardaman 