GET Cafe Serves Up Espresso, Elusive Jobs For Disabled People

NARBERTH, PA — Eight months ago, 34-year-old Zachary Inkeles got hired as a barista. He absolutely loves it. It’s his first job … ever.

Inkeles is autistic, and he struggles with symptoms of a cognitive impairment that makes it difficult for him to concentrate, remember details and learn new things. After graduating from high school in 2006, Inkeles applied for jobs and signed up with advocacy groups that aim to connect disabled people with employers, only to find himself stuck on an endless waiting list.

In 2013, a bridal shop owner brought on Inkeles as a store volunteer, teaching him how to keep tabs on inventory. Six months later the shop went out of business. But Inkeles didn’t give up. He kept hunting for jobs, dropping off his resume in person, but almost never got a reply.

When he did get a phone call or score a job interview, the positions always seemed to suddenly vanish. His mother, Ellen Inkeles, said she knows why: blatant discrimination against her son’s disability. The most glaring example was Zachary’s experience applying for a job at a frozen yogurt shop in California.

“The manager left a phone message asking Zach to come in for an interview. Nowhere on his resume did it list his disabilities. As soon as he called the manager back, five minutes later after she called, she heard his voice and knew that he had a disability. The job suddenly no longer existed,” Ellen Inkeles said. “He wasn’t given a job interview, nothing.”

Inkeles and his job coach went to yogurt chain's corporate office to complain, but it didn’t matter — all hiring decisions were left exclusively up to store managers.

“People weren’t giving me a chance,” Inkeles said.

In January, Inkeles and his parents moved back to the Philadelphia suburbs after 23 years away. Randomly enough, his mom met a group of construction workers who told her about a new coffeehouse — GET Cafe — committed to hiring people with disabilities.

Brooke Goodspeed originally launched Great Expectations Together, GET for short, as a community center offering classes in writing, knitting and drawing, among other things. In January 2017, Goodspeed decided to expand the organization's mission after a mother shared the story of her disabled son’s struggle to get promoted at work and showed her a news story about a cafe that hired people with disabilities.

Goodspeed could empathize. Her son, Oliver, is a non-verbal 9-year-old with Down syndrome and autism. Whenever Goodspeed took Oliver to the playground, people would stare.

“Maybe they didn’t know what to say," she said. "He could be loud. He moves his body a lot in awkward positions, and doesn’t speak."

Goodspeed said Oliver only felt comfortable at the hospital —where doctors and nurses were familiar folks who treated him like a regular kid — and Penn Children’s Center, a preschool that provided a “most wonderful, accepting inclusive experience.”

“We saw how much that helped Oliver and how much his teachers and classmates grew from learning alongside him,” Goodspeed said.

She and her husband, John, set out to re-create that kind of environment where Oliver and other people with disabilities could be themselves without being judged. Opening GET Cafe at 246 Haverford Ave. furthered the Goodspeeds’ cause and in a small way addresses a troubling reality for disabled Americans — more than 80 percent are unemployed, according to 2018 U.S. Labor Department statistics.

Cafe manager Victoria Goins, whose 9-year-old daughter, Lana, is autistic and has Down syndrome, said people with special needs like Inkeles deserve an opportunity to work in a working environment that aims to help them thrive.

“We give them opportunities to do things that they might not get to do,” she said. “Our mission is to employ and empower our staff.”

About a month before GET Cafe’s opening day, Ellen Inkeles tracked down the owner and manager hoping they might give her son a chance. They promised to interview Inkeles, and kept their word.

He dressed business casual in slacks and a button-down shirt, and brought his mother along.

“She kept me calm and comfortable,” Inkeles said.

Goins and Goodspeed didn’t mind that Ellen Inkeles tagged along.

“Sometimes people with special needs need a little help communicating,” Goins said. “Because she was his mother, obviously, she knew him very well, we took that as his big supporter.”

Goins said that she and Goodspeed were impressed with Inkeles' resume; especially his willingness to get work experience volunteering at the bridal shop.

“If this guy was consistent and responsible at a volunteer job, how much more would he be able to do if he were to get paid?” Goins said.

On the spot, Inkeles got the job. “I was so excited and touched,” he said.

He started work on Valentine’s Day, the cafe’s grand opening.

For $10 an hour, he washes dishes, takes orders and rings up customers on the cash register. The steady paycheck is nice, but the four-hour shifts slinging coffee twice a week have given Inkeles even more.

“I made friends at GET,” he said. “I love working there.”

Goodspeed hopes it’s just the beginning for Inkeles —and the rest of the Get Cafe crew.

“Our biggest success will be when one of our employees or volunteers tells us that they got offered a job with benefits,” she said.

“For us, that’s a grand slam.”

David Block is a legally blind, award-winning filmmaker and freelance journalist.