Good Coffee, and a Way Back In — Social Enterprise Cafe in Cleveland, OH
A working cafe that pays for a fourteen-week barista programme for people coming out of incarceration. Two hundred and fourteen graduates since 2019, seventy-one percent still working a year on, and the accounts on this website every March.
Six Things That Make It a Business and Not a Gesture
A charity cafe that sells bad coffee trains people for a job that doesn't exist. Everything here starts from that.
The Coffee Has to Be Good
Not good-for-a-cause. Good. Beans from a roaster in Tremont, a proper dial-in twice a day, and a bar our graduates can walk into any specialty cafe in Ohio having already worked. Nobody's career was ever built on a customer's sympathy.
See the menuPaid From the First Morning
$19.50 an hour from day one of week one, not a stipend and not after a probation period. People leaving prison have rent due in three weeks like everybody else, and an unpaid programme quietly selects for the people who least need it.
The programmeA Certification That Travels
SCA Barista Skills Foundation, sat and paid for by us. It means something in a job interview in a way that 'completed our programme' does not, because it is the same certificate the person interviewing them holds.
How to applyNine Employers Who Actually Hire
Not a jobs board — nine cafes, two hotels and a hospital catering team who have each taken at least two graduates and kept them. A placement is arranged before week fourteen, not hoped for afterwards.
Hire a graduateWe Publish the Numbers That Look Bad
Completion, placement, and retention at twelve months — including the twenty-nine percent who aren't working a year on. An organisation that only publishes its good numbers is asking you to trust the ones it hasn't shown you.
Our numbersNobody Owes You Their Story
The person making your coffee may have been inside for two years or twenty and it is not on the menu. Please don't ask, and please don't thank them for their journey. Order a coffee, tip if you like, and let it be a cafe.
QuestionsFourteen Weeks, Paid, in Four Parts
Six people start every intake and we run four intakes a year. There is no interview panel, no CV and no requirement to explain your record to anybody.
Weeks 1-3 · The Floor
Clearing, restocking, dishes, opening and closing. Deliberately not glamorous — it's the part of a cafe job that everybody actually does, and it's where somebody who hasn't held a job in eleven years finds out they can hold this one.
Weeks 4-8 · Behind the Bar
Grinder, machine, milk, and eventually a full weekday morning rush with a trainer standing next to you. SCA theory runs alongside it in two-hour blocks, and the exam is sat in week eight on our dime.
Weeks 9-12 · Running a Shift
Opening the cafe, cashing up, ordering, and training the person three weeks behind you — which is the week most people say they stopped feeling like a trainee. Two of our four permanent staff came through this stage and stayed.
Weeks 13-14 · The Handover
Two trial shifts at a partner employer, a real reference on our letterhead, and a conversation about money, transport and childcare that is booked whether or not anybody asks for it. Then follow-up calls at three, six and twelve months.
Including the Ones We'd Rather Not Print
Since 2019, 268 people have started the programme and 214 have finished it. That is a completion rate of eighty percent, and the fifty-four who left did so mostly in the first three weeks — housing falling through, a recall, or a job that paid more starting on Monday, which is a good reason to leave and we say so.
Of the 214, 186 were placed with an employer inside a month. At twelve months, 152 are still in work — seventy-one percent. We report that number rather than the placement number because placement is the easy one, and because a programme that stops counting at week fifteen has no idea whether it worked.
The money: the cafe covers about sixty-two percent of the programme's cost through what it sells. The rest is grants and about $90,000 a year in individual donations. Full accounts go on this website every March, unaudited-but-complete in year one and audited every year since. If you want to see them before you buy a coffee, they're linked in the footer of the March post and nobody will make you ask twice.
- ✓268 started · 214 finished · 186 placed · 152 working at 12 months
- ✓80% completion, 71% retention at a year
- ✓62% of programme cost covered by cafe sales
- ✓Accounts published every March, audited since 2021
1418 East 9th Street
Thirty-two seats, a training bar at the back that customers can watch, and a noticeboard by the door that is genuinely used.
Five Things Besides Buying a Coffee
In rough order of how much difference they make, which is not the order most people expect.
Four Steps, and No CV
Four intakes a year, six places each. Referrals come through the reentry coalition and probation, and you can also just walk in and ask.
Ask, However Suits You
Walk in and say so at the counter, message us, or come through a parole officer, a halfway house or the reentry coalition. All four routes end in the same place and none of them needs a CV or a cover letter.
A Conversation, Not an Interview
Forty minutes with two people, one of whom did the programme themselves. We ask about transport, housing and childcare, because those are what actually decide whether somebody finishes. We don't ask what you were in for.
A Morning on the Floor
Come in for one shift and see whether you can stand it. Paid, of course. About one person in five decides it isn't for them at this stage and that is a completely fine outcome for everybody.
Start on the Next Intake Monday
January, April, July, October. If the intake is full you go on the list for the next one and we stay in touch in between — a name on a waiting list who hears nothing for three months is a name that's gone.
Graduates, Employers and Regulars
I came out in March with fourteen years behind me and no work history anyone would look at. Fourteen weeks later I had a certification, a reference from a real employer and a job on Detroit Avenue. Two years on I train their new hires. Nobody here ever asked me what I went in for.
We've taken six people from this programme and kept five. That is a better retention rate than our open-market hires, which is not the sentence I expected to be writing when we signed up as a partner employer.
The coffee is genuinely good, which sounds like faint praise until you've been to a charity cafe where it isn't. I come here twice a week because of the flat white and I would come here anyway because of the rest of it.
Questions We Get Every Week
Is it more expensive because it's a charity?
No. The prices on this page are what a specialty cafe on East 9th charges. Charging a premium for a cause turns your customers into donors and your staff into a story, and both of those make it a worse cafe and a worse programme.
Can I ask the barista about their background?
Please don't. They may have been inside for two years or twenty and none of it is on the menu. If somebody volunteers it that's their choice, but the default here is that this is a cafe and they're at work.
How do I apply?
Walk in and say so at the counter, message us here, or come through probation, a halfway house or the reentry coalition. No CV, no cover letter, no interview panel. Four intakes a year — January, April, July and October — with six places each.
Do you take people with any conviction?
Almost. The exceptions are offences that would legally bar someone from food service or from working unsupervised with the public, and there are fewer of those than people assume. Ask us about your specific situation; we'll give you a straight answer rather than a policy.
Is the training actually paid?
$19.50 an hour from the first morning of week one, on payroll, with taxes and a payslip. Not a stipend and not backdated on completion. An unpaid programme quietly selects for people who can afford to work for nothing, which is the opposite of the point.
Where does the money go?
About sixty-two percent of the programme's cost is covered by what the cafe sells. The rest is grants and roughly $90,000 a year from individuals. Full accounts go up on this site every March and have been audited since 2021.
Can my company hire a graduate?
Yes, and it's the single most useful thing on the list. Message us with what the role is and what it pays. We'll be honest about whether it's a good fit rather than placing somebody into a job that won't last three months.
What happens to the ones it doesn't work for?
Twenty-nine percent aren't in work at twelve months. Some went back inside, some moved, some found the hours impossible around childcare, and a few simply didn't want it. We keep calling, the door stays open for a second intake, and eleven people have come back and finished on the second go.
Hire Somebody Who's Already Worked a Real Bar
SCA certified, fourteen weeks on a busy floor, a reference from us and a follow-up call at three, six and twelve months. Nine employers do it already and five now come to us before they advertise.
1418 East 9th Street, Cleveland
Applying, hiring, wholesale beans or the room. A person here reads these, and you don't need to explain anything you'd rather not.
- Visit us1418 East 9th Street, Cleveland, OH 44114
- Call us(216) 555-0147
- Email ushello@ninthandkin.org