Good Sammy opens cafe

WA-based Good Sammy has opened its first hospitality venue Good Thanks café at the Kwinana Recquatic recreation centre.

The not-for-profit organisation was selected to deliver café operations at the existing venue by the City of Kwinana through an expression of interest process.

City of Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams said the values of the City and Good Sammy aligned and the opportunity would provide benefits to the local community.

“This partnership helps both the City of Kwinana and Good Sammy to achieve their goals of embracing diversity and creating employment opportunities for people living in their local communities with a disability,” Ms Adams said.

“The café is the first opportunity for Good Sammy to extend their social enterprise café model, run from their Canning Vale headquarters, into the community.”

Good Sammy chief executive Kane Blackman said the new café would foster inclusiveness and belonging for customers and employees.

“We are strongly focused on transforming workplaces and society by creating employment opportunities for people with disability, and the hospitality sector is a great place to deliver those customer-facing roles,” Mr Blackman said.

“One in five people have disability, but there is still an invisibility to disability.

“Customer-facing roles for people with disability help to break down some of the stereotypes that exist in the community, which is really important because people with disability represent a talent pool that is not being suitably accessed.”

Mr Blackman said that while the average unemployment rate in Western Australia sits at 3.6 per cent, the unemployment rate for people with disability is 10 per cent.

“There is estimated to be 100,000 Western Australians with disability of working age not in the workforce and our mission is to transform workplaces and society by creating employment opportunities for people with disability,” Mr Blackman said.

“We hope to provide jobs for up to 20 people with and without disability at the café.”

Good Thanks head barista Tomsie said they were excited to be employed at Good Thanks café.

“I’ve always felt passionately about working in hospitality to show that my disability doesn’t affect my capability to work in an industry I love,” said Tomsie.

Today was the first day of operation for Good Thanks café in Kwinana and Mr Blackman said Good Sammy had started working with the Town of Cambridge to open a second Good Thanks café in Leederville.

“[The second cafe] is another exciting opportunity to create employment opportunities for people with disability,” he said.

“We remain open to discuss with other employers about any ways to improve disability employment within their businesses or via their procurement models.”