(soft orchestral music) - [Ben] It's as cool as any coffee shop.

- [Person] Room for cream.

- [Ben] The coffees are great, the drinks are great.

But what makes us different than any other coffee shop is who serves the coffee.

- My name is Todd Baker.

- Meg Hibbitts.

- My name is Aaron.

- Yeah, Bitty & Beau's Coffee Shop, which downtown Charlotte, Camden Street, South End.

(soft orchestral music) - Bitty & Beau's is something that was really born out of my wife, Amy's heart.

Our two youngest, Bitty and Beau were born to us biologically with Down Syndrome.

We started this little coffee shop in Wilmington, North Carolina, 500 square feet, just really to have a place for Bitty and Beau to work someday.

And then all of a sudden we realized, oh my, there's so much more going on here.

There's a demand, a need for these.

We call the coffee shops kinda like portals.

A coffee shop in Charlotte is a portal for people with and without disabilities to come together in a very normalized environment, right?

Like a coffee shop, everybody knows what to do when they go to a coffee shop, whether you work there or whether you're a guest.

(bright orchestral music) - Our favorite is the customers with a big heart and smile on their faces.

- Get to get to know the customer.

I like to how like a helpful conversation, help them feel like a more helpful environment.

- The customers that come in really seem to enjoy being here.

They come in, they get to know the employees.

It's a happy place, you can just, there's just a vibe here.

- Yeah, I do everything behind the counter, like register, get people's orders and making drinks.

- So, they take our orders, they make our drinks.

(indistinct) They call the orders out, they help us keep the shop super clean.

We actually have a lot of employees who have started helping us do our inventory.

We set a lot of goals, we like to set goals with our employees.

We ask them what their goals are too, so that they can learn new skills and be the best employees that they can be.

- I like to make drinks and improvement of my lab skills.

And it also a big opportunity to do that.

- Seeing even more people and meet new people who have talent, special talents, not disabilities, I don't like saying that.

Because they can do their own things in their own ways, and they can share that to prove that in Bitty & Beau's.

- My daughter works here.

It's really funny, people ask her, "Do you like working at Bitty & Beau's?"

And her answer is, "No, I love working at Bitty & Beau's."

- There are so many things I love about coming to work.

The customers, the dogs, the positive messages we send.

- She really enjoys writing little inspirational messages on the cups to hand to people.

- We send part of the messages, like, "We love you."

"Come again soon."

"Believe in yourself."

(bright upbeat music) - Meg had a hard time finding a job, and she tried and she looked at several different places, and kind of the minute they found out she had a disability, they were nice to her, but they didn't really see her as an opportunity for employment.

- When we found out that they were opening here, she started following the stories closely so she could make sure to get her name in and try to find a job.

- And folks with disabilities, I find they're often told, you can do it as long as whatever it is is on a list this big.

- Working is important for all humans.

And getting an opportunity to work is something that we take for granted, and a lot of us do because we feel like we have to do it.

But when you find work that you enjoy, it changes you as a person.

- And I've noticed in my time here that not only are we changing the way people see other people, we are changing the way our employees see themselves.

(gentle orchestral music) I'm so lucky to be able to get up every day and do something that I love, with people that I love.

It's really cool to see their growth.

And then when they succeed, I'm there cheering them on, we celebrate with them.

And that's what all of us do.