Light roast, French vanilla, hazelnut—these are just a few of the options customers at ROUTES Roasters are offered. The familiar comfort of coffee is something that many people crave especially in the morning. In recognition of this reality, ROUTES students Eric Godfroy, Meggie Norton, Harshal Nookala, Vinny Midura, and Tanvir Rahman run the shop with dedication, greeting customers and serving them within minutes. Despite their ease, this routine has not always been second nature.
The ROUTES program, previously known as the 18-22 program, is running for the first time during the 2024-2025 school year in the Millenium building behind Abbot Elementary school. ROUTES Roasters was established in October by the students and staff of ROUTES in order to provide students with professional experiences including working a job, managing money, and engaging in customer service, among other skills beneficial for a sustainable career. The shop is open from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.
The staff involved with helping the students run the program are lead teacher Todd Foster and job coaches Shannon Manuel and Jake Richardson. The three work towards teaching each student how to be independent and to find their own jobs, Foster explained, and opening their own coffee shop was a beneficial way to contribute to this goal.
“[The students] are not going to be here forever, but [ROUTES Roasters] is going to help them grow into where they want to be,” Foster said.
Foster gained inspiration for the coffee shop from other 18-22 programs in surrounding towns. However, the difference was that those programs had their students running their own delivery business, bringing products to people. According to Foster, the reason for organizing ROUTES Roasters as a shop was to provide students with exposure to a work environment, customer service, and time and money management, also known as “soft skills.”
“Instead of never having that exposure when [the students] do have a job, now we can say, ‘Hey, ROUTES Roasters, this is what you used to do,'” Foster said.
The planning process for the shop originally started in September and took around six weeks before its opening in October. It included a debate on whether the shop should be called ROUTES Rooster Roasters or ROUTES Roasters. At first, it only ran on Thursdays, with four students at the shop at one time. Now, almost half a year later, ROUTES Roasters runs two days a week, with only two students at the shop at a time.
Godfroy explained the three different positions at the shop: server, coffee maker, and greeter. Each member works together, with the greeter welcoming customers, the coffee maker preparing the orders, and the server bringing each order to the customer. Godfroy himself is an phenomenal greeter, according to Foster.
Not only do the students work at the shop, they handle the behind the scenes logistics as well, including inventory. The students and staff typically head to Market Basket to restock on supplies. According to the job coaches, this outing is another creative way to teach life skills, as it tasks students with finding the right ingredients for a certain product and learning how to navigate a grocery store.
“[Teaching them] lifelong skills that people might not think about, that are day to day errands, is a huge part of what we do,” Manuel said.
The money to pay for these supplies comes from the profits that ROUTES Roasters generates. The majority of clientele at the shop are the administrative staff that work at the Millenium building, who provide the business with over twenty orders a day. However, they are not the only customers. ROUTES has traveled to other areas in the community to sell elsewhere as well. So far, they have had two catering jobs, one for the Rotary Club and one for the senior center, where they sold 83 cups of coffee.
“We’ve been doing a lot of coffee-making,” Godfroy said.
ROUTES Roasters’ next stop is Westford Academy for the next town meeting on Saturday, March 22. According to the coaches, the involvement with the community is a way to gain networking skills and build trust within the community.
For the students, the shop is not just about learning life skills and gaining work experience. The sense of responsibility that comes with owning a business is motivational and encourages more passion and commitment.
“There’s a lot of ownership if you have your own business,” Foster said. “You feel connected to it.”
Still, even with the logistics and hard work that ownership entails, the students enjoy serving coffee and snacks. According to Norton, a major part of the experience for her is having the ability to brighten a customer’s day.
“ROUTES Roasters is here for a cup of coffee and to make these people happy,” Norton said.
According to Foster, the shop will likely not close in the following years, unless students find jobs elsewhere. Still, as older students are working jobs outside of the program, ROUTES Roasters will remain a good learning opportunity for younger students. The goal of ROUTES, according to Foster, is to provide individual attention to students, helping them understand the responsibilities of an adult and execute these responsibilities with little to no dependency on others while also giving them the confidence to pursue their own careers.
Although Foster is no stranger to transitional programs like ROUTES, this is his first year as a teacher in Westford.
“This my dream job,” Foster said. “If I can help [my students] get to where they want to go by the time they leave my program, then what more could I ask for? […] I couldn’t think of anything more meaningful than that.”
Despite the vast amount of progress the students have made since the creation of ROUTES Roasters, the business has plenty of time and space to grow further.
“It’s only the beginning,” Foster said. “We’re all really happy about where things are at and we’re headed in the right direction.”
