By Dylan Sciacca | Reporter
After years of serving coffee and creating employment for adults with disabilities in Waco, Bitty and Beau’s Coffee is closing Thursday.
According to a KWTX article, The local franchise’s owners, Mark and Amy Sauer, are retiring to travel and spend more time with their seven grandchildren.
But this closure will be followed by a store opening with a similar mission to Bitty & Beau’s. Hayden Swearengin, founder of Loyalhood Coffee, donated his business to Friends for Life, a Waco nonprofit that helps seniors and people with disabilities live as independently as possible. Loyalhood Coffee will open mid-November at 110 Franklin Ave., the same location as Bitty and Beau’s.
Swearengin said Loyalhood Coffee will hire all the same people from Bitty & Beau’s back.
“It’s basically going to be the same thing with just different names and different colors, and then we are adding on an employment readiness program as part of our nonprofit,” Swearengin said.
While the mission and employees will remain the same, Swearengin said Loyalhood Coffee will have its own syrups, and there will be one main difference in how the coffee is made.
“The beans are going to be different,” Swearengin said. “But I am going to try to keep the menu very similar because they have very specific recipes and just specific ways of doing things. So I want to learn how they do it and not completely change everything.”
While the change may be hard for Bitty & Beau’s fans, some have optimism that the change can be for the better. Longview junior Evan Hodge is a coffee fan who enjoys Bitty and Beau’s coffee and atmosphere but was disappointed to hear of its closing.
“I love Bitty and Beau’s and am sad to see them go, but I am glad that it is staying pretty much the same,” Hodge said. “It sounds like to me that the name change is one of the biggest changes of it all. But I am glad to see the new company has the same values as Bitty and Beau’s … I’m excited to check it out when it opens.”
Despite these small changes, Swearengin said he is confident that the support Loyalhood has will help make the coffee shop successful.
“With it being a nonprofit, we’ve already got people backing it up and donating to support,” Swearengin said. “So Waco has really come alongside us and helped. Another thing is, there won’t necessarily be a corporate above us. It will be more of a small business-type thing, so we have the freedom to personalize this place and do more highlights for our employees.”
