EXCITING NEWS FOR Houston coffee lovers! North Carolina-based Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is opening its first coffee shop in Houston this weekend. The “radically inclusive roastery” celebrates this milestone with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 14, at 10am, at 2367 Rice Boulevard.

Bitty & Beau’s Coffee currently employs more than 400 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in 24 stores across the country. Founded in 2016 by Amy Wright and her husband Ben, Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is named after their two youngest children, who each have Down syndrome. Their daughter Lillie was born with autism. The Wrights’ first store in Wilmington, N.C., employed 19 people with disabilities, and since then, the franchise has been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America and Fox News, and enjoyed coverage in Southern Living and People magazine. In 2017, Wright was named a CNN Hero of the Year.

“Eighty percent of people with disabilities don’t have jobs,” said Wright in a release. “We’re out to change that. Not just by providing employment opportunities for people with disabilities, but by showing our guests what’s possible.”

With the citywide ReelAbilities Houston Film & Arts Festival coming up Feb. 5-23 — which presents film screenings, music concerts, art exhibits and educational programming to promote inclusion and amplify the voices of people with disabilities — the opening of a Houston Bitty & Beau’s Coffee couldn’t be timelier. Five of the Houston shop’s employees were hired through Jewish Family Service and Celebration Company, two organizations who assist people with disabilities develop vocational skills and gain meaningful employment.

“Bitty & Beau’s Coffee has created a path for people with disabilities to become valued, accepted, and included in every community,” says Wright. “With the support of the community behind us, we are energized to bring Bitty & Beau’s coffee to Houston.”