Paying off
different jobs.
He thrived working with food and people, so his parents decided opening a cafe was the best fit.
Michael Myers’ grandfather founded London Fog. His father was the company’s president. Myers did not have any experience in restaurants. He chose to start one because it best matched his son’s abilities and interests.
The cafe’s managers develop individual strategies to help each of the workers with autism succeed, Michael Myers says, just as any boss would work with employees to overcome challenges.
They don’t schedule workers for busy weekend shifts until they master their jobs. In one case, they started a cook out alone in a quiet area before moving the worker to the main kitchen line.
In the kitchen, 28-year-old Stephen Wittstadt works at his own pace. He used to stock grocery store shelves, but says he prefers the cafe’s smaller setting and his job here as a prep cook. A peeler in one hand, he spins a potato in the other, and lets the skins fall to the cutting board.
For the Parkville man, developing the ability to peel a potato was an accomplishment. The managers gave him a set of knives and videos to improve his fine motor skills. He spent weeks practicing at home.
Wittstadt lost his job at the grocery store when it closed. He applied for work at several other places, including a hobby shop and a pet store, his mother says, but each one turned him down.
When he was younger, he could get therapy, emotional support and other services from school. His parents were overjoyed when he completed high school, Carol Wittstadt says, but with the end of his formal education came the loss of key services. The challenges he would face became apparent.
“Here is where the anger and stress and sadness come in,” Carol Wittstadt said. “Once he does have a job, will he be safe? Will he be able to advocate for himself if something went wrong?”
She is haunted by what will happen when she’s gone.
For now, working 20 hours a week at Sam’s cafe, he is learning. The more he interacts with people at the cafe, his mother says, the more his independence grows.
He orders his own meals at restaurants, takes an Uber to work and is on track to get his own apartment in an assisted living setting.
The best part of his job are the friends he has made.
“It’s almost like a small family,” Stephen Wittstadt said.
All of the people on the spectrum employed by Sam’s cafe are clients of Itineris, a nonprofit founded by parents a decade ago. It provides customized work development for people with autism.
Michael Myers serves on Itineris’ board of directors.
Lauren Eaton, the nonprofit’s program director, said the challenges people with autism face do not preclude them from working. The key, she says, is to connect the right person with the right job.
Itineris helps clients prepare for interviews by working on interpersonal skills such as shaking hands and making eye contact. The staff tells employers that a person with autism who interviews poorly might still be a good worker for the job.
“It’s not charity work,” Eaton said. “They can help your bottom line.”
Some Itineris clients box donations for the Baltimore Hunger Project or stamp and shelve contributions to The Book Thing. One founded a recycling business that collects and sorts items, and became successful enough to hire an employee. Another plays the piano in the lobby at Kennedy Krieger Institute in East Baltimore.
“Never underestimate what anyone is capable of,” Eaton said. “Different is good.”
More than half of Itineris’ 85 clients are in paid positions or are self employed. The rest hold volunteer jobs. Such work is not for everyone. Nicole Liggins sends her autistic 26-yearold son Tyrique to a day program at Chimes in Milford Mill. It offers sheltered employment, vocational training, and other supports.
The Owings Mills woman says her son talks little, and is closer in neurological age to a first-grader.
When she considers sending him out to a traditional job, she gets scared. She remembers the time years ago when Tyrique hung his head after a group of boys laughed and made fun of him. She fears that he could be followed into a bathroom and attacked.
Liggins says she supports the push for more work opportunities for people with autism. But she hopes it doesn’t come at the expense of services for adults such as her son who need intensive support.
“They are a community that needs protecting,” she said.
Sam’s cafe is not yet profitable, but Michael Myers says the investment is paying in other ways. His son is conquering his latest goal: Learning how to take orders and send them to the kitchen.
New customer Angela Sriram walked into the cafe one recent day and asked for a recommendation.
Myers introduced himself, told her about the cafe’s unique workforce and urged her to try the popular “Grown-Up Grilled Cheese,” stuffed with bacon and gruyere and cheddar cheeses.
Sriram, a local artist, said she was eager to support Sam’s because businesses like it help build community, and in a community, people take care of one another. “I want us to get back to that,” she said. “When I come in here, I know why I am spending. I am spending to help Sam and others like him.”