A Port Washington bakery and café closed its doors Thursday after fighting to figure out a way to stay open.
After eight years in business, Coffeed-Sweet Comfort Bakery and Café was forced to shut its doors due to financial struggles, said Eileen Egan, the executive director of Community Mainstreaming Associates.
The bakery was owned by Community Mainstreaming Associates, a nonprofit founded in 1980 that helps developmentally disabled adults find homes and develop job skills.
“We’ve had a good run,” Egan said. “For eight years, we’ve been able to employ people with disabilities, and we were able to train people. A lot of good things happened. Unfortunately, it just cost us a lot of money to run a small store.”
To help with revenues, Egan’s organization partnered about four years ago with Coffeed, a New York City-based, charity-minded chain of cafés that also runs shops at Jones Beach and the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay.
Coffeed co-founder Abe King said the bakery has employed more than 30 people over the years and helped with vocational training at high schools in Roslyn, Great Neck and East Williston.
King said he would love to bring the bakery back to Port Washington if they could find the right investor.
“I hope that with this publicity that someone from Port Washington or Sands Point realizes the only good thing they can take with them is good deeds. This is the baked good of deeds here,” King said.
King said he will miss the regular customers but, most of all, his staff.
As manager of the bakery, he worked closely with the employees and said his experience with hiring developmentally disabled adults has been only positive.
“I strongly recommend all the business owners hire locals with what some would call disabilities and realize their own disabilities and realizing that they are happy coming to work for two hours a week,” King said. “I’m sure most people can afford to have someone in their store, being productive, for two hours a week. All you need is a little patience.”
Egan said she is confident the current employees of the bakery will find new jobs soon after proving that disabilities don’t stop people from being productive members of the local work force.
“I hope that over the past eight years, we’ve demonstrated that they are fantastic workers,” Egan said. “We’ve participated in the Harbor Fest and we have a lot of loyal customers. I think they’ve gotten to know us better and that helps.”
