Friends Coffee & Tea is a cafe close to Del Mar’s campus, just across the street from the Bascom library. Located in a small strip plaza on Bascom Avenue, owned by Roxana Chiu. Chiu’s grand opening was in April 2018 but was temporarily closed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cafe reopened in July of 2021.
Chiu’s Cafe is a special department of FCSN (friends of children with special needs). She said the reason for opening this cafe was to “offer a window for outside people to see what specialty communities can do and have a feeling of work skill training.”
“It’s not easy for most special needs to either get working experience or get some training. So we like to have a real business, a real something for them to experience, to feel the real skill, working skill, everything.”
Chiu had no prior industry experience with less than 6 months to create almost everything by herself. But with the help of a friend, family, and culture she got it done. She said her friend and she worked on the cafe’s signature font and logo. Chiu made the menu herself with the help of her mother, she also went to Taiwan to see what interesting drinks and pastries there were and featured them in her cafe.
Not only does Chiu offer drinks and baked goods made from scratch and at more affordable prices than other cafes, but they are all natural too. She mentions that whatever she sees, she can make it and put her own twist on it.
Her favorite drink to make and enjoy herself on the menu is the almond spice latte. “When you say almond coffee latte you were thinking about almond syrup. It’s not like artificial syrup, it’s real neat almond milk, it’s not American almond milk. Africa Colonel powder gives you an amaretto and nutty flavor. So we use that as an almond spice cup of latte.”
Chiu is a busy and creative woman. She doesn’t just run a cafe but she works at the FSCN program teaching after school English cooking. She has a special needs daughter with no ability to care for herself, meaning Chiu has to do everything her daughter can’t do for herself.
Despite her continuing to operate her business while losing nearly $8,000 per month, she mainly focuses on showcasing the talents of special needs individuals. “It’s a good thing I’m really a stress free person, I mean it’s FCSN and we have our mission, we know what we need to do.”
“We showcase what our special needs [people] can do. They have their print, their paintings, their greeting cards, handmade mugs, and also the project of our adult day program, the handmade soap, and handmade lotion. So we have lots of handmade cookies, that’s their own work in the project and the resilience of a shop.”
