Ornery Vets Cafe: New and Inclusive Cafe Stitched into the Fabric of Athens, OH
Athens, OH is a quilt, and each person in the community is a colorful square knitted into it. From the undergrad students and the graduate students to the professors and the community members, from the business owners and artists with differing abilities to the veterans and the survivors--each one of us is a square in that quilt. Athens, OH has picked up a sewing needle and knit Ornery Vets Cafe into that quilt.
Ornery Vets Café (OVC) will open on Thursday, March 11th, 2021 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The cafe was founded by a team that understands the importance of inclusion--and of course, access to delicious soups, salads, and smoothies.
But how did the cafe’s founders meet? And how would they all be able to create the welcoming environment that they wanted?
In January of 2019, Mercadies George enrolled in Ohio University to receive her BSS degree in Entrepreneurship and Consumer Psychology. After six years in the Marine Corps, she decided it was time to move home to raise her son, with dreams of one day opening a cafe. When Mercadies described her ideal cafe, she said, “I want it to be a place that people go because they choose to go and because it makes them happy. It makes them feel more connected to people in Athens.”
Mercadies had no idea that an opportunity to open a cafe would come so quickly. “It sounds corny to say, but--the whole situation was very serendipitous,” Mercadies remembered.
While pursuing her degree, Mercadies enrolled in a course taught by Professor Thom Stevenson in the Patton College of Education. When she explained her passion to open a community-driven cafe, Thom’s eyes widened. Thom told Mercadies, right then and there, “Wow, I think I have a project that you would be a great fit for.” That project was Ornery Vets Cafe.
Two days after Mercadies met with Thom, she met with the OVC founding team at Passion Works, which is a community art center founded by Patty Mitchell, where artists with differing abilities create powerful works of art. You can see their artwork all across Athens, and you may even recognize the Passion Flowers--the official flower of Athens, OH.
Because of Patty’s life experiences and her experience opening Passion Works, she has special talents for creating an inclusive and welcoming space. At the meeting about OVC, Mercadies met Patty. When Patty creates different spaces, like Passion Works, she said, “The intention has always been to reimagine institutional culture that supports people with developmental differences.” One of the concerns that surround people with developmental differences is that they often lack access to healthy food. For OVC, Patty said, “We’ve been talking for years about having healthy food in the studio for everyone who comes in.” OVC, just three doors down from Passion Works, will be a great way for the Passion Works artists and the rest of the Athens community to have access to healthy food.
At the meeting, Mercadies also met Joel Laufman, an owner of both the Passion Works building and the OVC building. Joel is a Vietnam veteran and a retired History and Government teacher. After he met Mercadies to discuss the possibility of her leading OVC, Mercadies recalls him telling her, “You know what? It’s gotta be you. We’re gonna get this thing up and running, and then once it gets settled we’re gonna dump it into your hands and it’s gonna be your baby.”
Mercadies--honored and shocked by the proposition--agreed. After talking with Mercadies, anyone could see the strength and perseverance she put into life, day in and day out. To her, opening a new business is “kind of like the Marine Corps--it’s a new challenge. It’s something different and I’ve done a lot of research as this has all slowly come together.”
Now, Mercadies is the General Manager of OVC. However, adjusting from six years in the Marine Corps to everyday life back home was a challenge.
As a Vietnam veteran, Joel understood the challenges Mercadies went through when adjusting from service to returning home. He said, “Even when I looked for help, there wasn’t any… PTSD is not a prison, but it sure feels like you’re doing time.” While he said this, his eyes scanned the cafe, looking out the windows, anticipating and remembering the explosions in the war. For Joel, opening this cafe would help create a safe space for people like him that live with PTSD. “And I thought,” he said, “that before I pass on to the happy hunting ground, that I would like to do something for my brother veterans. And this is it.”
Thom, too, found himself impacted by war. His uncle served in the Vietnam War and his grandfather served in World War II, both of whom returned with serious injuries. It was heartbreaking. Thom said, “I never served, but I was the youngster who sat on the living room floor and listened to people who served share their lived experiences.”
Each founding member had a passion for breaking down barriers through community and food, whether that be for people with developmental differences, veterans, or more. When creating this space, the founding team wanted more than just a cafe--they wanted an inclusive, welcoming environment that clearly followed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Knowing that some people cannot walk up the stairs to enter the cafe, the team created a wheelchair-accessible ramp entrance. All of the doors, too, are wide enough for those in a wheelchair to enter, welcoming all with a vast embrace.
As a professor, Thom knew that Ohio University students would be invaluable to creating an accessible space; they, too, were part of the fabric of Athens, OH. Thom explained, “We’re using mechanical engineering students to help design equipment in the space.” The counters by the window raise up and down so that people can adjust the counter to sit in either a tall bar stool or a wheelchair. The other tables and counters throughout the cafe are all ADA-regulated by height and width so anyone can sit there. He continued, “We had fashion merchandising students who helped choose the color of the walls as part of their class structure. We had Restaurant, Hotel, and Tourism students help design the menus.”
When the Restaurant, Hotel, and Tourism students experimented with the OVC menus, they had the opportunity to serve the potential menu items to the Passion Works artists. The artists then told the students what they liked about the menu. One artist with differing abilities, in tears, shook Thom’s hand and said, “You know what? No one has ever asked me what I can have in a smoothie. People typically just tell me what I have to have.”
The Passion Works artists, another square of the Athens quilt, also helped create the cafe by painting their signature murals on the walls and the cabinets. Patty said, “We want to have a Passion Works presence and honor the social space for the veterans so that everybody feels comfortable. And we want to also illustrate that [Athens] is an intersective community, not specific to one group.”
Because OVC is community-driven, their business plan relies on working together with local restaurants. Restaurants like Zoe’s, Purple Chopsticks, and others will supply OVC with locally-sourced food. Mercadies said, “It’s such a good surprise that people are already so supportive… People are already believing that we’re gonna make a change.”
After hours, OVC hopes to welcome veterans, assault survivors, people with PTSD, people with differing abilities, people with addiction, and more for specialized programming. Mercadies explained, “One of the things that we want to do here is let people know: It’s okay. There is nothing wrong with you, you’re not broken.”
Now, the OVC team is preparing to welcome the entire community with open arms. Mercadies continued, “We’re gonna make a difference and make people’s lives better.” She paused, searching for the right words. “And, [it’s] such a happy butterfly-in-the-stomach, you know, lightning-through-the-veins, kinda thing.”
Mercadies, Joel, Thom, and Patty will (did) open the Ornery Vets Cafe doors on Thursday, March 11th 2021, and say, “Okay, Athens. We’re here.”
Follow Ornery Vets Cafe on Facebook. The address is 30 E State Street. They are 3 doors down from Passion Works and across the street from Domino’s. Enjoy!