Bitty & Beau’s coffee is headed to South Carolina

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is expanding to Charleston, SC.

Owners Amy and Ben Wright began a nationwide search and have chosen Charleston as the next journey in their life-changing mission. The second coffee shop is expected to open this fall.

Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is described as a human rights movement disguised as a coffee shop. Amy and Ben hired an entire staff of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to run the Wilmington location. One of Bitty & Beau’s Coffee‘s missions is  to change the way communities view those with IDD and now folks in Charleston will get to share the one-of-a-kind experience.

“We created Bitty & Beau’s Coffee to show the world that people with IDD should be valued, accepted and included members of society, especially in the workplace. It’s a place where diversity is not just appreciated, it’s celebrated,” Amy Wright said. “Charleston offers the same southern hospitality we’re accustomed to and was recently voted the ‘Best City in the South’ by Southern Living Magazine, so it’s the perfect place to open our second location.”

The Wrights founded Bitty & Beau’s Coffee in 2016. Amy and Ben are the proud parents of four children, two of whom have Down Syndrome. Those two are Bitty and Beau, who both put countless smiles on the faces of everyone they meet. It is reported that more than 80 percent of people with IDD are unemployed nationwide. Bitty & Beau’s Coffee is creating a path for people with IDD to become more valued, accepted and included in every community.

Allen Rippy donated the old Hummer building on New Centre Drive last year to Bitty and Beau’s mission to help them keep up with the growth.

“It has just been a blessing,” Rippy told us in a Thanksgiving interview. “This is the happiest place in Wilmington.”

We’ve followed the Wright family from the WWAY Extraordinary Person of the Week stories on both Amy and Ben before the coffee shop was created to the big announcement of another expansion.

If you would like to get involved and help with the expansion, email charleston@bittyandbeauscoffee.com or visit www.bittyandbeauscoffee.com.