Baked goods, smoothies and hot drinks sold out fast when Friendly Faces Café threw open its doors last Friday inside Friendly's at Foxmoor Shopping Center, straddling the Hamilton-Robbinsville line. The new coffee counter isn't just another neighborhood pit stop — every participant working the register, prepping drinks or handling behind-the-scenes tasks has an intellectual or developmental disability, and the ribbon-cutting drew a crowd big enough to empty the pastry case.
The café is an initiative of MACS Potential, described by TAPinto as a 501(c)(3) organization that provides employment training and social-skills practice for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. According to the outlet's coverage of the October 30 opening, Friendly Faces Café gives participants a place to develop skills, earn paychecks, interact with neighbors and take part meaningfully in community life. Those comfortable with customers get customer-facing roles, while other participants take on behind-the-scenes responsibilities — a setup designed to match each person's comfort level and ability.
Co-founder Sarah Reggimenti, who launched the Friendly Faces Café initiative alongside Leslie Marchio, put the mission plainly: everyone deserves to have a paying job, to be part of their community, and to do something meaningful, per the same TAPinto account. Reggimenti also said participants genuinely want to be at the café and take pride in receiving paychecks. Marchio has a daughter who experienced learning issues and is reportedly training to help others with behavioral challenges, a personal thread running through the project's origins.
A Donated Space and a Mayor's Welcome
The café occupies restaurant space inside Friendly's donated by owner Lee Paroly, who said he was proud to support an initiative that helps employees feel their true worth. Paroly, who also backs community efforts including Cone with a Cop and a charity softball game with the Miracle League, said doing nice things for the community is the most important thing he can do and that he simply wants to see people smile.
Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin welcomed Friendly Faces Café as a new township business, telling the gathered crowd that the café offers young people an opportunity to build life-changing skills. Martin also thanked Paroly and MACS Potential for backing the effort. Robbinsville Council President Deborah Blakely said the opening reflected the town's commitment to inclusion, adding that she was proud to live in a community that values and embraces everyone — and that the day's joy and smiles reflected Robbinsville's character. Robbinsville, she noted, welcomes individuals of all abilities and needs into its schools, playgrounds and local businesses.
Church Kitchen Behind the Counter
Michelle Frisch-Paster of The Bridge Church, which supports the Friendly Faces Café initiative, said every child was created with a purpose and that the church wants to support that purpose. Much of what customers sampled on opening day came out of the MACS Potential kitchen program, which operates out of an industrial kitchen at the church and serves students from the Hamilton, Robbinsville and West Windsor school districts. Those students prepare the café's baked goods as part of the program.
Friendly Faces Café is open Thursday and Friday mornings from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., selling fresh-baked goods, smoothies and hot drinks. The limited hours reflect the program's broader goal — creating meaningful employment opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities rather than running a full-scale restaurant operation.
Part of a Wider Push for Inclusive Hiring
The café's debut lands alongside a broader state push around disability employment. New Jersey's Division of Developmental Disabilities has identified competitive employment in the general workforce as the first and preferred outcome for people with disabilities after they finish school, and the division offers supported employment services based on assessed needs as part of the state's Employment First initiative.
Friendly Faces Café also isn't the only New Jersey coffee shop built around this model. Inclusion Cafe, a nonprofit coffee shop tucked inside the Vineland Public Library, is an offshoot of Inclusion Coffee Shop in Elmer, which opened in 2022. Founder Amanda Vellon told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the shops have hired 15 staff members with disabilities and seven without, with employees earning $16 an hour plus tips. Further south, No Limits Café on Route 35 in Middletown has a mission to teach life skills to 36 people with intellectual disabilities, according to ABC7 New York. Founder Stephanie Cartier has said the idea grew out of her family's concern over what her daughter with Down syndrome would do after turning 18.
New Jersey employer guidance posted by the state notes that the New Jersey State Wage and Hour Law authorizes charitable organizations or institutions to employ individuals with disabilities at a rate below minimum wage, provided they obtain special permits, according to business.nj.gov. Whether that provision applies to Friendly Faces Café's pay structure isn't addressed in the available reporting. For now, the Hamilton-Robbinsville community has a new weekly ritual: two mornings a week to grab a smoothie, support a neighbor, and watch a sold-out sign go up by mid-morning.
