Your favorite South Bay coffee shop might have some new competition — and it’s one with a good cause.
Mychal’s Café is now open in Redondo Beach. But it’s no ordinary coffeeshop. Instead, it’s an enterprise that trains and employs young adults with developmental disabilities to help prepare them for the professional world.
During the café’s soft opening on Wednesday, May 22, customers got first tastes of the new menu, complete with sandwiches, salads, soup, smoothies, coffee drinks, and baked goods like almond bars, croissants and muffins.
Ed Lynch, founder and executive director of Mychal’s Learning Place, hangs out in the kitchen with Kate McLoughlin and Dominic Luster at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Ed Lynch, founder and executive director of Mychal’s Learning Place, visits Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Ed Lynch, founder and executive director of Mychal’s Learning Place, visits Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Ed Lynch, founder and executive director of Mychal’s Learning Place, visits Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Ed Lynch, founder and executive director of Mychal’s Learning Place, and his wife Carol and son Zachary visit Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera and Caelyn Griffith work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Kate McLoughlin works at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera, Caelyn Griffith and Rebecca Foster work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera and Caelyn Griffith work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera and Caelyn Griffith work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera, Caelyn Griffith, Rebecca Foster and Kate McLoughlin work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Alyssa Najera and Caelyn Griffith work in the kitchen at Mychal’s Café in Redondo Beach, a new restaurant helping youth and young adults with developmental disabilities with job training so they can live independent and productive lives, on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
of
Expand
ARedondo Beach officials will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 6 to mark the cafe’s official launch.
The shop’s origins began in 2015 as a kitchen-sized bakery and pop-up barista service inside Mychal’s Learning Place, a Hawthorne nonprofit that helps youth with developmental disabilities build independence and pursue their goals.
Founder Ed Lynch created Mychal’s Learning Place in 2002 in honor of his daughter, Mychal, who died at 7 years old in 1996 from a demyelinating disease, a condition that caused her basic functions to decline.
Her legacy has grown more and more in the 22 years since the organization began.
In 2021, . But that location is closing soon, Lynch said, because the hospital needs the space for a blood draw center.
But now, the cafe has its own storefront, 2302 Artesia Blvd., with an outdoor dining patio and an herb garden that kitchen staffers clip from for recipes.
Since opening the new flagship Mychal’s Cafe, “I’ve just got a constant smile on my face,” Lynch said during an interview at the soft opening.
“To sit here and just watch it all brings me a lot of joy,” Lynch said. “That’s why we’re here at Mychal’s — it’s about the students who come here.”
The café is run by those in the Mychal’s Place adult program, Path to Independence, along with a few hired support staff members. And, eventually, those who aren’t already part of Mychal’s Learning Place will be able to apply for the job training program, Lynch said.
The goal is for the cafe to be completely student-run, he added. And ultimately, the experiences are to prepare people for opportunities outside of Mychal’s Place.
“The kitchen is really training them to work in other restaurants,” Lynch said.
He’s talked to food service company Sodexo, for example, about that business being open to hiring trained workers from Mychal’s Cafe for kitchens inside corporations like Mattel.
There’s also Mychal’s Print and Embroidery shop in Hawthorne, where student workers screen prints and sew logos and designs on apparel for personal and corporation-sized orders. Lynch’s team is working on a plan to expand that enterprise.
Items from Mychal’s clothing line, Made with Love — which Lynch said launched a year ago — are also for sale inside the cafe. The crew necks, hats and other apparel are printed at the embroidery shop.
It’s important, Lynch said, for people living with disabilities to have natural social environments just like anyone else, instead of being isolated for having differences.
“If they don’t have that, they’re missing a big piece in their lives,” Lynch said. “The more opportunities we can have them in front of society — and feel good about (what they do) — the better.”
Outside of business hours, the space can also be rented for events such as weddings and baby showers, Lynch said, with the cafe providing catering.
That, he added, is yet another way the young adults can try different career paths and figure out what they want to pursue.
But Lynch doesn’t want the restaurant to have a novel narrative.
The story behind Mychal’s Cafe is the bonus, Lynch said.
“They’re just like you and I,” he said of the trainees, adding that he hopes customers “leave the label at the door.”
“And hopefully, business owners will come in and see that someone with a disability is capable,” Lynch said, and may “just need the opportunity and the belief in them.”
If you go
Mychal’s Café is at 2302 Artesia Blvd., in Redondo Beach. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
