Mercedes-Benz of Tampa is selling more than just high-end cars:  It’s promoting a model café that offers job skills and training to young adults who have autism.  Rather than strange bedfellows, this is a perfect partnership and model for how business and non-profit entities can work together.

Artistas Café is the creative concept of Vicky Westra, “coffee diva” and mother of a 16-year-old daughter who has autism.  The café is “Changing Lives One Bean at a Time,” by providing training, internships and employment for high-functioning adults diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Westra left corporate America in 2006 to start a coffee business – Javamo Coffees. The next year, she started Art for Autism.  “We built the company to fund programs in art and art therapy for self-expression,” Westra says.

“In 2010, I met the Mercedes Benz manager to talk to him about our providing coffee for his dealership,” Westra says.  At the time, she was also working with a high school group of 20 students and two teachers, training them in job skills through a coffee kiosk. “I happened to share the information with him and we started talking.” Next thing Westra knew, the manager asked for a proposal for an entire a café.  “It was inspired thought that brought the two things together,” she says.

Since then, the venture has been “an amazing journey,” says Westra. “It has been a great success,” she adds. Team members have had a real transformation, and they feel good about who they are.  The café’s success is also evidence that young adults with autism “can meet what society expects,” she says.

Ventures like Artistas Café can make a marked difference for those with autism, whose rate of unemployment is as high as 80 percent. People who have autism often graduate high school with few job skills. Once they leave the school system, there are few, if any,  programs available, Westra explains.

“About 60 percent of those with autism have average or higher intelligence. There’s no mental or IQ disability; they struggle with social interaction, communication and multitasking.  Those skills don’t come naturally, but can be trained,” Westra explains. “Someone with autism might struggle with an interview and we misinterpret the cues,” and pass that person over, which can be a mistake, she says.

Westra points out that individuals with autism can make exceptional employees because they are engaged and like repetitive tasks. Even with customer service, “once we teach them, they get it and they repeat it,” she says.  In fact the café consistently rates a 4.96 out of 5 points for customer service.

The model is so successful that Westra is expanding, opening up a café for a new corporate partner. She will also be launching a culinary training program to offer training for food service industry skills. Ultimately, the goal is to create more job paths for adults with autism, she says.

She is also looking for other locations for Artistas Café. “We want to continue to be a business within a business. It’s an opportunity to educate people.  The café helps people get comfortable with it,” Westra says of employees with autism. She is also continuing to build the idea with a view to a global program. “We’re formulating a franchise model,” adding that she welcome inquiries from other who would like to start a similar café. 

The benefits are not limited to the cafés and employees:  Mercedes Benz USA recognized the Tampa dealership with its most prestigious award, The Best of the Best 2011, and then the 2012 Diversity Award for its ongoing efforts with autism.