Cafe Serves Up Big Helpings Of Human Dignity
‘What are you, retarded?” The unbelievably rude words hung in the air of a downtown Spokane cafe like the stink of a skunk.
The woman spewing the poison glared daggers at the counterman who was the target of her abuse.
She was in her 30s, dressed in a crisp business suit. The service was apparently too slow for a self-important snob used to pushing people around.
But the man fumbling at the cash register wasn’t offended. He’d heard the words before and stared back at his critic without a trace of malice.
“Yes,” he said sincerely. “Yes, I am retarded.” In fact, all seven employees at Sky Walkers Express have disabilities ranging from mild retardation to profound behavioral problems.
Because of that, the tiny sandwich and espresso joint located on the Parkade skywalk is the only privately financed business of its kind in Washington.
Opening such a cutting-edge restaurant is the brainchild of Paul Brown and his boss, Doug Huigen, who not so coincidentally also owns a job placement and training center for the handicapped.
“Some of these people don’t even have the concept of money,” says Brown, who manages Sky Walkers Express. “But these people are great workers. When I had the coffee shop (Java Junky’s), I would have hired all of them.”
The overall reaction to this special staff has been considerably less nasty than the insensitive clod mentioned above.
But after seven weeks, the future of Sky Walkers is far from certain. It remains to be seen whether enough people will shed their misconceptions about the handicapped to make this a go.
“I hope we’re here two months from now,” says Huigen.
“A lot of people don’t like to be served by people with disabilities,” adds Brown.
Brown loves fighting for underdogs. He did it at his Java Junky’s, the much-publicized espresso shop that was as much a haven for Spokane’s neo-beatnik street kids. That business went bust last New Year’s Eve. Brown landed a job at Huigen’s Job Resource Center.
Back then he said he wanted a nice, normal nine-to-five deal with less stress. Unfortunately, Brown is a man whose big ideas saddle him with a load of work.
One of his duties at Job Resource Center was to find jobs for a group of seven people with varying degrees of disabilities. Brown spent day after day dialing telephone numbers of prospective employers, giving the hire-the-handicapped pitch.
The answers were all the same: No. No. No. No…
Out of frustration, Brown devised a business plan for a restaurant that would give his seven clients high-profile jobs.
“Everybody always talks about hiring the disabled,” says Brown. “But when they do get hired they always end up doing things like janitorial jobs at night, safely away from the public eye.”
Huigen bought the idea. A location was found in space left when Orange Julius relocated to the new STA Plaza.
And so Sky Walkers Express opened for business. Press releases were sent out. A couple of TV stations bit and dispatched camera crews to promote this experiment.
Huigen, however, bristles at any notion that Sky Walkers has any higher intentions than serving the public.
“I don’t want to make it on nobility,” he says. “We just want to be known for a good product at a reasonable price.”
You can get a sandwich, soup and a soft drink for $4.50. Fresh cinnamon rolls are baked every day at 75 cents each, and a baked potato with fixings is $1.60. One phobia about the disabled is that they won’t be as clean as they should. But Brown says hygiene is Rule One.
Will Sky Walkers Express survive? Only the public can answer that question.
“I hate the word retarded, I’ve heard it all my life,” says Barbara Stamatoplolos, a Sky Walkers’ manager. “Even when they don’t say it, I can hear it in their voices. I can see it in their eyes.
“I don’t think people are really aware that we can work like anyone else.”
, DataTimes