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El Camino Café, situated next to Conkey Corner Park on Clifford Avenue, plans to open to the general public in January. The shop is fully run and operated by Ibero-American Action League’s Supportive Employment program.
The cafe offers espresso-based drinks and a lunch menu including sandwiches, wraps, and catering. Its primary purpose is to provide inclusive employment opportunities and staff 13 program participants, with plans to expand to 16 in the future.
Staff members are participants in Ibero’s division of home-based community services’ pre-vocational service for individuals with developmental disabilities. The program provides individuals with the support they need to transition into the workforce.
The cafe is primarily funded by the state’s Office of People with Developmental Disabilities and partially funded by donations from the ESL Charitable Foundation and the Golisano Foundation.
The cafe replaces FashionWorks, a thrift shop and employment program that served the same purpose: providing pre-vocational opportunities.
Agustin Rodriguez, chief of social enterprises and development at Ibero, explains that the shift to a coffee shop was meant to increase customer service interactions and expand the skill set gained from two years of pre-vocational training before transitioning out of supportive employment.
Through the coffee shop, says Cindy Oqueno, Ibero’s director of home and community-based services, “there was more opportunity for business, bringing in more clients and sales.”
Rodriguez drew inspiration from New City Cafe, run by New City Church, and launched a cafe over the summer in the Beechwood quadrant, intending to hire from their youth ministry.
“When I saw how this church was able to find a community and social enterprise component to it, it just made a lot of sense that we could probably replicate the same thing here,” explains Rodriguez.
It began with an espresso machine in the office, with no prior experience making coffee or working in the food retail business. Learning whether there was demand in the North Clinton area for a sit-down coffee shop began with a pilot program at the International Plaza for the 2024 season.
“During our pilot program, what we learned was that you can’t bring the same basic drinks that you see from the third-wave coffee shops downtown to North Clinton. We quickly learned that there’s a sweet tooth in the northeast side of the city, primarily because it’s very Latino-heavy,” says Rodriguez. “The underlying theme was ‘I want my coffee. I want coffee on my sugar.’ That’s the difference in the type of coffee.”
It wasn’t the cortados making the most sales; it was the frappuccinos in their pilot program.
“What we would love to do next is to add value to the local community,” Rodriguez says.
Given the demand in the community, renovations began earlier this year to open El Camino neighborhood’s first full-scale coffee shop.
“What we’re trying to do is position ourselves to still deliver a high-quality product … at a price that’s a little more affordable for the local mom who’s trying to bring in their kids in here,” says Rodriguez.
Soody Martinez, the cafe’s coordinator, has managed it since its pilot. She’s one of four staff members working at the cafe, including two direct service providers, who serve as job coaches on rotation, training individuals to be ready for supportive employment.
Unlike other pre-vocational programs in the area, they serve mainly individuals in the area code and primarily operate in Spanish, with only two English speakers.
Martinez operates the cafe in Spanish. A migrant of indigenous Miskito descent from Nicaragua, Spanish is her second language. In Nicaragua, she earned a degree in marketing, became a business agent, and eventually taught for four years as a university professor.
When Martinez came with her family to Rochester in 2023 through Ibero’s migrant relocation program, she was interested in using business acumen and skills to build the cafe from the ground up, taking a workforce development program.
“This program consists of creating distinct activities that develop skills in younger adults with different capabilities,” she says, “and they can later be integrated into the workforce.”
The cafe offers individuals the opportunity to learn administrative tasks, including ordering products, operating a kitchen, and interacting with clients. At the moment, two program participants are preparing to transition out of the cafe and enter the workforce.
Says Martinez: “Each young adult represents a family that’s improving their quality of life through them, and I say through them because when you have a child with special needs, there aren’t many organizations prioritizing inclusion.”
Emmely Eli Texcucano is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort.
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