Engineering Joyful Jobs
At this uncommon cafe, a disability is not a barrier to opportunity
By Robert L. Smith
WOOSTER, Ohio–As he prepared to make a chocolate peanut butter-cup smoothie at The Joyful Cafe, Michael Kruse glanced down at a plastic-coated menu card. The print was large and color-coded. Icons illustrated key steps. Kruse, an amiable 24 year old, is on the autism spectrum. The cue card helps him to focus on priorities amid the distracting din of a cafe.
As the whir of the blender faded, Kruse turned and presented a customer with the frosty drink, smiling broadly. He loves his job and that’s a first.
“I’d say, compared to my other jobs, it’s way more accommodating,” he shared later. “I feel an equal worth.”
Such statements warm the hearts of Barry Romich ‘67 and his wife, Robin Wisner, key visionaries behind this uncommon cafe. Through a nonprofit corporation called Joyful Enterprises, the couple and their partner, Heather Yates, design and run cafes that offer meaningful employment to people who often don’t get such an opportunity. The Joyful Cafe hires men and women with Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, and other physical and cognitive challenges. It trains them, encourages them, and puts them to work serving customers.
Managing such an enterprise requires a little more patience and some innovative systems engineering, they’ll tell you. Thus the cue cards behind the counter, the product pictures on the cash register, and the absence of glass carafes that might shatter if dropped. But the rewards are starting to register in this city an hour south of Cleveland.
Launched in 2018, Joyful Enterprises recently opened its third cafe in Wooster–inside the Wayne County Public Library. Plans are percolating for a fourth cafe in nearby Rittman. Meanwhile, some of the staff, waving resumes with work experience, have begun to move on to other jobs. Seldom has an employer been happier to see good workers poached away.
“Locally, we’d love to have more employers take them away from us. That means the idea is working,” said Romich, who is eager to share the Joyful strategy.
“Really, it’s not that hard to do,” he insists. But then, he’s accustomed to moving mountains to help people with special needs.
An electrical engineer, Romich pioneered adaptive technologies that make life easier for people with mental and physical challenges. While still a student at Case Institute of Technology, he collaborated with his mentor and friend, Ed Prentke ’26, to develop innovative electronic communication aids. The pair founded the Prentke-Romich Company, which Romich led for years as president and where he served as a president of the board before stepping down five years ago. Now named PRC-Saltillo, the Wooster-based company employs about 400 people worldwide.
Case has also enjoyed Romich’s generosity and can-do spirit. He was one of the founders and early financial backers of Sears think[box], the university’s acclaimed innovation center. The Case Alumni Association honored him with a Meritorious Service Award in 2014.
In Wayne County, he’s well known for the makerspace that bristles with tools and fabrication equipment in the garage behind his historic farmhouse. It’s a hub of do-it-yourself projects for school and community groups. It’s also the headquarters of the Romich Foundation, which supports local charities and grassroots causes.
At 78, Romich’s step may have slowed a bit, but he retains a firm handshake and eyes that sparkle with energy. A life-changing cafe is simply the latest and perhaps pinnacle project for a lifelong maker.
Brewing jobs with heart
On a sunny fall morning, Kimberly Meese sat at a table inside The Joyful Cafe at Healthpoint, a health club and rehabilitation center for Wooster Community Hospital. This was the first Joyful Cafe and remains the busiest, a snug but bright space off the center’s main entrance.
Her 25-year-old son, Conrad, sat across the table from her stuffing tourist brochures into envelopes before beginning his shift behind the counter. He’s on the autism spectrum and has health issues that affect his ability to speak. The job is a blessing–for both of them.
“Everyone likes to feel like they belong and they contribute,” Kimberly Meese said. “He’s a big calendar guy, so he looks forward to this every week. It’s nice to have meaningful employment. As a parent, this was one of our worries.”
Fortunately for the Meese family, Barry Romich and Robin Wisner shared their concerns. The couple has special needs children of its own, twins Joshua and Caleb. The boys are 27 now and living in a group home. But a decade ago, Barry and Robin faced a daunting prospect, one that parents of children with special needs know all too well. As young adults, the boys would age out of the special education classes and training programs that the government provides. What then?
Robin Wisner by chance met Heather Yates, a mother whose daughter faced a similar cut off. The two women began to discuss the options for their children. The prospects were grim, they came to realize, despite job readiness training.
“You may have learned a skill, but finding a job is nearly impossible,” Robin Wisner said. Employers want people who can work quickly and efficiently, with little training, she said. She also feels that many managers, lacking experience with people with special needs, fear the unknown.
There seemed to be nowhere for their kids to go.
“So the idea was, ‘Let’s make something,’” Barry Romich said.
Isabel Casto has worked at The Joyful Cafe at Healthpoint since it opened in 2018.
Michael Kruse prepares a smoothie at The Joyful Cafe.
A community enterprise
The cafe idea was inspired by Amanda Yates, Heather Yate’s daughter. She had found enjoyment and success working for a cafe at Wooster High School that offered opportunities to students with disabilities.
“We thought, “If it worked there, why couldn’t it work in the community?’” Barry Romich said.
Joyful Enterprises was born with a lot of helping hands. Wooster hospital, which wanted a cafe at Healthpoint, offered the space. The Romich Foundation awarded a grant for construction and equipment costs. A special education teacher at Wooster High School helped design the easy-to-follow recipe cards and other concentration aids.
Romich put some of his engineering skills to work. Exhibit A: the spoon adaptation. Filling a heaping tablespoon of, say, protein powder typically requires two utensils: A spoon to scoop the powder out of its plastic container and a knife to level off the excess. That’s tricky work for someone who lacks hand-eye dexterity.
Romich designed a small shelf that affixes to the back of the container. One need only scrape the spoon along its bottom edge to achieve a level tablespoon–with one hand. The device is now used by all café staff and managers.
“Make it simpler for someone, it’s simpler for everyone,” Romich said.
The second Joyful Cafe opened in the offices of an insurance company, Western Reserve Group, which wished to offer a cafe to its employees and also wanted to support the Joyful mission. More recently, a library renovation made room for the third Joyful Cafe, which celebrated its grand opening in November.
“We’re so happy to have them here,” said Library Director Jennifer Shatzer, on a recent visit to the café. She learned of the Joyful mission several years ago, when Robin Wisner addressed her rotary club. When surveys showed that library patrons desired a café above all else, she made sure a renovation project included the space. The non-profit Friends of the Library and the Wayne County Community Foundation stepped up to buy the equipment.
“It’s a feel-good thing, and our patrons are overwhelmingly positive about it,” Shatzer said. “Anytime you can enjoy coffee and yummy stuff, and support a good cause, it was meant to be.”
Today, Joyful Enterprises employs about two dozen people with various disabilities. The employees generally work two shifts per week, allowing more people to gain work experience and helping ensure no one gets overwhelmed.
As a business model, it’s a challenge. Only the cafe at the private office complex is near to breaking even, Romich said. The enterprise needs and solicits donations. And all three cafes count upon a friendly landlord offering cheap or free rent.
Still, Romich and Wisner believe they are offering a model that other employers could use to various degrees. They argue the joyful strategy brings unexpected rewards, including super devoted employees, like Isabel Casto. She joined the Healthpoint café when it opened. Five years later, she still looks forward to every shift and the regulars, like those walking with the Silver Sneakers, look forward to seeing her.
“Everyone’s nice,” Casto said, her smile lighting up the room. “We all get along.”
Robin Wisner thinks more employers could use workers who add a jolt of joy and excitement.
“Just because there are things you can’t do doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do very well,” she said. “For a lot of our folks, that’s being happy coming to work. We do not struggle with young people who would rather be texting than helping you at the counter. That’s not a problem for us.”
Chery Flox, a retired dental hygienist, joined the cafe six months ago as a manager. She said her eyes were quickly opened to the complex beauty of her staff.
“The relationships you build with the special abilities workers, it’s amazing,” she said. “They’re like family right of the bat. You learn so much from them. Everybody’s different.”
Seeing the growth in her employees’ confidence and abilities has been the most rewarding part of her job, she said.
An example of the step-by-step picture menu cards employees use to make beverages.
Barry Romich and Robin Wisner at their third Joyful Cafe location inside the main branch of the Wayne County Public Library
Spreading the joy
As the enterprise grows in size and reach, the founders are seeing ripple effects. The local business community has taken note. Robin Wisner and Heather Yates were both honored by the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce with its 2024 WorthyWorks Award.
Recently, one Joyful worker was hired by a local grocery store. Another accepted a job with an auto parts shop, where he’s putting to use a knack for identifying and fixing car problems.
Barry Romich and Robin Wisner think many of their employees are ready to work in a broader range of places, which is necessary. Cafe work is not for everyone. Notably absent from the ranks of Joyful staff are the twins, Joshua and Caleb. Their muscular disorder, called dystonia, makes physical work difficult.
Instead of lamenting the challenges her sons face, Robin Wisner tends to focus on how far they’ve come. In wheelchairs at age three, they are now walking and living independently. Caleb is starting a program to create arts and crafts for sale, maybe at the cafes, which already sell tumblers designed by staff and fabricated at the Romich Foundation makerspace.
Meanwhile, she and her husband take comfort from little victories, like Michael Kruse learning how to make a smoothie–and thanking them for the chance.
“He said he feels like he fits in,” Robin Wisner said, catching her breath. “He told us he feels this is a place where he can be himself. That was so good to hear, because that was our goal.”
To find a Joyful Cafe, or support their mission, go to joyfulcafe.org
Manager Deeveda Kuhn and Michael Kruse at The Joyful Cafe inside the Wayne County Public Library.
Robin Wisner with her twins, Joshua and Caleb, at a fashion show fundraiser for Joyful Enterprises.
The front of a travel mug sold at The Joyful Cafe featuring a design by one of its employees.
The back of a travel mug sold at The Joyful Cafe featuring a design by one of its employees and signed by the artist.
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