About Us
Our Mission:
- To assist individuals with mental illnesses become independent, tax-paying citizens.
- To provide trainees with the tools they need to recognize and utilize inherent talents and skills.
- To provide the restaurant community with a pool of reliable employees who have had training and first-hand experience working in a quality restaurant setting.
- To reduce and ultimately eliminate the stigma surrounding mental illness by shifting focus from disabilities to abilities.
Café 54 is more than an elegant restaurant located in Tucson’s downtown arts district. Café 54 is also a unique employment training program for adults recovering from mental illnesses. Due to the disabling nature of mental illnesses, many individuals have limited work experience. Café 54 provides on-the-job training in a variety of restaurant positions such as: line cooks, prep cooks, servers, cashiers and dishwashers. The café also provides training for job coaching - providing suppor and training to consumers wishing to learn job coaching and peer-support specialist skills by working as job coaches at the café. With the opportunities provided by Café 54, the trainees are on their way to independent employment in the community.
Café 54 employs an insufficient number of “trained professional” staff to run the restaurant. The success of the restaurant rests on the burden of work being done by the trainees. Work ethic expectations are as stringent as with other employers in the community: timeliness, arriving well groomed, maintaining socially appropriate relationships, and working as a member of a team. Consequences for misconduct are termination from the program with the option of returning to work after conduct issues have been addressed. This kind of work environment sets the stage for work out in the community.
The café also provides psych-social supports for trainees in providing one-to-one time and accessing counseling, intervention, and health care supports as needed. We also have a job developer on staff who works alongside the trainees. When trainees have mastered the abilities that are required for community employment, the job developer will work with employers to place the trainee in work that is compatible with the trainee’s stated interest and ability level. As appropriate, the café will send a staff member or a consumer job coach who is familiar with the trainee to work on-the-job with the trainee to assist in their acclimation with the job. Support from the café is available to the trainee for as long as is needed.
