SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The first coffee shop in the Sioux Falls area run by people with special needs opened recently, aiming to serve up a lesson in inclusion along with the lattes.
The Yakkity Yak Coffee Shack employs about 20 baristas with diagnoses such as blindness, autism and down syndrome.
The shop, which runs out of the new All American Gymnastics Academy building in southeastern Sioux Falls, not only serves coffee and food to its customers, but is meant to expose people to what inclusion is and to better employ people of all abilities.
“This helps to break the stereotype that people with different abilities can’t do anything they want and that they can’t support themselves,” Yakkity Yak store manager Meredith Molseed told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “If you give people a chance to do what they want,…
