Disabled Workers Train for Jobs Behind the Counter at Sam’s Cafe

When Sam’s Cafe in Sepulveda opened for the lunch-hour rush, part of Linda Wald’s job was to ask soft drink customers “Regular or diet?”

Wald appeared to be enjoying her work and doing a great job as one of 24 food servers during the first day of business at Sam’s Cafe, a training kitchen for mentally handicapped adults.

The $1.3-million cafeteria on Parthenia Street near Haskell Avenue opened Monday to its first 160 paying customers, most of them mentally handicapped people who work next door for New Horizons, a nonprofit educational institution which trains the retarded and helps them find work.

New Horizons is operated by the San Fernando Valley Assn. for the Retarded Inc.

The cafe was established by New Horizons executives, who hope the kitchen will prepare their students for careers in the restaurant business through teaching them skills such as frying hamburgers, cooking pot roast and vegetables and creating lemon tortes.

“Go into the community and look around the fast-food places. They’re hungry for employees . . . that will give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, employees that will be reliable,” said Irwin Goldstein, an assistant to New Horizon’s executive director.

He said many businesses are unaware that the retarded can make good workers and Sam’s Cafe may open their eyes.

Sam’s Cafe organizers said workers--who are paid $10 to $50 for a 30-hour work week--will be trained within 45 days to carry out every job except cashier, which some trainees cannot do. They said they are optimistic that the first 24 trainees will find jobs, opening training positions for others. They plan to double the size of the program, to 48 trainees, in six months.

“It will be a way for the organization to generate additional income, provide more visibility,” said Norma Herdt, executive director of New Horizons. “We as a nonprofit organization need to have the world aware of what we’re doing.”

The cafe is not open to the public, but is expected to earn income from meals bought by about 300 New Horizon students who attend classes or have jobs in its workshops next door.

It is named in honor of Sam Greenberg, a wealthy Van Nuys businessman and political figure who has given New Horizons large sums of money and donated $450,000 toward construction of the cafe.

Shoulder-to-shoulder in blue T-shirts and white aprons, workers who had been training for a week stood ready at their stations Monday as the line of patrons stretched outside the cafe doors. With a capacity of about 300 people, the cafe boasts safety-conscious appliances--such as meat slicers and french fry machines--designed to provide extra protection for the mentally handicapped.

On Monday afternoon, the cafe trainees looked like workers on an auto assembly line. With almost military precision, Jerry Lerner set a fork, spoon and knife on the napkin he had placed against a tray’s corner and offered it to the next person in line. Later, Elnora Neal would retrieve the used trays. She said it was a much more enjoyable job than cleaning the floor and running machines at the New Horizons workshop.

The trainees’ instructors hovered nearby, on hand to mop up spilled drinks, straighten pan covers and oversee the cashier.

Bill Ibrahim, the food and beverage director, said the trainees working in the cafe applied for the jobs. They had to pass tests establishing that they could identify foods--macaroni, rice, beans--and distinguish four ounces of beans from six ounces.

The director, who said he left lucrative jobs in the hotel food business, said he enjoys his new job more than his past ones. “I see the payoff, just the happiness of the kids,” Ibrahim said.

Wald, like some of her co-workers, found the noon rush “fun.”

“Everybody wanted something different to drink.”

Some workers had serious facial expressions from concentrating, trying hard not to make mistakes. Others were relaxed enough to serve with big smiles and kept asking supervisors “How’d I do?”

Goldstein said workers passed the first day’s test easily.

“What I’m taken with is the calmness with which they’re doing the job,” he said. “The whole thing is thrilling, just to see what they can do. Don’t ever sell them short. They can do it all.”