Baking Inclusion: Reality Kitchen's Recipe for Empowerment

Behind the counter at Reality Kitchen Bakery & Cafe, large yellow stickers label every item: dishes, coffee bean grinder, espresso machine and wash station. A sign hangs above the pastry display case thanking patrons for their understanding, patience and support. The Tuesday cooking class had just concluded and co-founder Catherine Pickup sat down at one of the cabin-style tables that fill the eating area.

Before Pickup opened Reality Kitchen in 2010, she worked in transition classrooms in the Lane County school district. She supported intellectually and developmentally disabled high school students preparing to transition into the working world. She felt that “there was not enough time in the day to do the work we were really supposed to do.” Now, that same pool of students work at Reality Kitchen.

Pickup and co-founder Jim Evangelista began their mission to expand on the work of transition classrooms in a small rental in the Whiteaker Community. They had a free library exchange, had students do a a paper route and helped them get their food handling card. With the goal of opening a pretzel food card, they began working with a baker who ran his shop out of what is now Reality Kitchen.

Then, the day came when Pickup and Evangelista received an unexpected call. The baker decided to donate his business and all his equipment to them on the condition that they took over the rent. They didn't know anything about running a big bakery, said Pickup. “We have never been business people, but we thought ‘what an amazing opportunity.’”

Suddenly, they had an industrial kitchen, a business to run and a lot of learning to do. Just before the first Christmas there, Pickup said they worked around the clock baking and learning how to roll baguettes from YouTube videos.

Reality Kitchen is now both a fully functioning bakery and licensed employment path facility where people with disabilities can learn restaurant job skills. Students go through a 16-week course, splitting their time between the kitchen and customer service ends of the bakery. After the course is completed, students can stay for an internship.

Reality Kitchen is able to cater to students’ specific interests, with more time to work one-on-one with an instructor than in transition classrooms. Many students are referred to their program by transition classroom and Vocational Rehabilitation, or VR, case workers.

This was the case for specialty baker Jesse Egli. He began his culinary career at Lane County Community College. The program was too fast paced and did not offer adequate learning accommodations to students with autism like himself, “I started the main culinary program and just couldn’t keep up with everything,” he said. After connecting with Reality Kitchen through the VR program, he decided to stay on. Egli has been working as the specialty baker for eight years and said his dream is to one day open his own candy store.

There are six permanent staff members who, like Egli, “have worked themselves into a position and have become [pillars] at Reality Kitchen,” said Pickup, “It’s great because for other folks coming in, they can look up to them and say ‘hey, look at them, they’re thriving.’”

Pickup said their goal is to expand the curriculum beyond just food service. The classes would not have to relate to just employment, she said, and could be anything to help this population live more independently. “It is so worth it, we get so much feedback from parents and individuals in the community about what we are doing and how much it means in their lives, even if it’s just building confidence.”