Having worked mostly in corporate pastry jobs—from Disney World to Four Seasons Baltimore and most recently at Atlas Restaurant Group—owning a tiny cafe is new territory for Jacqueline Mearman.

“As small and simple as this operation is operationally, every single step of my career has gotten me to this point of being able to run this operation and make it make sense,” says Mearman.

Indeed, her charming 400-square foot cafe in Tuscany-Canterbury, which features egg sandwiches, house-made chicken salad, and vegan smoothies, opened in October of last year and is not only surviving, but thriving, as a carryout cafe.

“People ask me when we are going to have indoor seating,” says Mearman. “I’m like, ‘We are just across from Stony Run Park—we have the largest outdoor dining anywhere,’” she says.

How did you get into pastry?
To get out of math and science class, I took baking and pastry at CAT-North (the Center for Applied Technology) in Severn. About a semester in, I was like, “Oh, I really enjoy this, and I think I’m pretty good at it.” I was lucky to have figured out my passion at an early age. From there, I went to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America] and graduated by the time I was 20.

Who was your most memorable mentor?
I go back to my teacher, Pete Akerboom at CAT-North. I would be practicing for competitions and icing Styrofoam cakes again and again and he was the kind of guy who would run his finger through it and say, “Do it again.” He’d correct how I scraped the bowl and even how I scraped the dough off my hands—I still do it the same way he taught me at that age of 16. The food industry is very militant, but baking has a special place for the constant perfection of things.

So why did you decide to open a cafe?
In culinary school, every person had to say what they wanted to do with their degree and every person wanted to open a bakery or a cafe. I was like, “Y’all are crazy.” But once the pandemic hit, it was the constant opening and closing of [Atlas] restaurants and having [to wear] a mask and laying off people. We had to make difficult decisions because we were in survival mode—it felt like my dream job was just gone.

What gave you the courage to take the leap?
I live in an apartment building, and the first floor was a cafe that’s been closed for the last two years. I called the leasing agent and when he told me what the rent was, I sat my partner down, and he was like, “We can do this.”

How did you come up with the concept?
We were limited with what we could do in such a small space. When we signed the lease, we had no idea what we were going to do. First, we thought we’d have deli sandwiches, and then one night we were like, “Breakfast sandwiches!”

When husband-and-wife owners Michael and Jennifer Myers first took their 25-year-old son, Sam, to visit their new cafe in the Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood, he was hesitant about embracing the family’s new venture.   

“He refused to walk in the door,” Jennifer recalls. “But now, we’ve gone from that very reluctant young adult to someone who enjoys every job that he is given, from rolling silverware to stocking shelves. He takes full ownership of it.”

Adds Michael: “He loves the people. He likes to greet the guests and say, ‘I’m Sam, welcome to my cafe.’”

Last spring, the couple debuted Sam’s Canterbury Cafe as an outlet for Sam, who is on the autism spectrum, to express his interest in the hospitality industry. In the year since, the eatery has not only established itself as an inviting hub for locals to stop in for lunch or a cup of coffee, but also as a business that provides meaningful employment for other adults living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

“By far, the best and most rewarding part has been seeing Sam and other adults on the spectrum learn,” Michael says. “It’s so great to see them become more willing to try new things, and more confident and happy in their friendships.”

Though Michael and Jennifer—a family investment manager and preschool teacher, respectively—had never worked in the restaurant realm before, they saw the cafe as a place for Sam to thrive professionally. With the help of local employment provider Itineris, Sam had previously tried his hand at working with computers on the Towson University campus, but he and his parents sensed that the environment wasn’t the right fit.

“Even though he liked computers, he didn’t like the routine nature of being in the computer lab,” Jennifer says. “He also didn’t like the lack of social interaction. But he did love the cafeteria.”

With that interest in mind, the couple began looking for a space to launch their own eatery in 2016. After a nine-month search, they eventually came across the former home of Chocolatea on Canterbury Road, which Michael says was an ideal residential area.

“We saw some great locations from a business perspective,” he says. “But we really wanted a real neighborhood kind of place that was going to have lots of regulars. That was going to be the environment that would be great for Sam, and also for the community.”

The owners, along with opening general manager Elli Straus, transformed the space into an inviting cafe serving all-day breakfast sandwiches, seasonal salads and soups, deli wraps, and savory flatbreads, as well as a full barista menu. Straus was mindful about designing the interior, which boasts local artwork, minimal patterns, and earthy tones that are specifically soothing for those with ASD.

To officially celebrate the one-year milestone, which happens to overlap with National Autism Awareness Month in April, the Myers family is offering a slew of specials promoting the cafe’s mission. The entire staff will be wearing blue (the official color of autism awareness) throughout the month, as well as offering blueberry bagels, muffins, pancakes, waffles, and a special bleu cheese salad to support the cause. A percentage of proceeds throughout April will be donated to the Baltimore-based Itineris Foundation.  

The owners are also hosting a customer-appreciation open house on Saturday, April 28 from 3-6 p.m., featuring complimentary beverages, light fare, and a tasting of Zeke’s Coffee.

Reflecting back on their first year, the owners say that the positive feedback from the community is what has meant the most to them.

“I keep thinking to myself, ‘Did we really open a cafe?’” Jennifer says with a laugh. “It’s a labor of love, for Sam and other adults on the spectrum, and also our love of Baltimore.”

COLOR GUARD: I think in general I tend to gravitate toward color. If you were to look at the rest of our house you would see it’s a pretty wide color palette. 

SHORT STORY: We get a lot of compliments on the picture hanging in the dining room and I wish I had a better story for it. My husband always tells me we need to make up interesting stories for things that we don’t have good stories for. The reality of that picture is that it was on clearance at CB2, but he likes to tell people that it is our aunt and uncle and then people always do a double take and are like, “Wait, really?” 

TABLE TALK: We’ve had the table since 2004. It’s a Heywood-Wakefield table and I found it while browsing eBay. That mid-century modern trend was just coming into vogue with the popularity of Mad Men and all of that stuff, but I was really drawn to the clean lines and natural materials. 

SPECIAL MEASURES: There is a guy in Hagerstown who owns a place called Strictly Hey-Wake and all he does is refinish Heywood-Wakefield furniture. He does a really beautiful job and he refinished our dining room table for us, as well as another record cabinet and king-sized bed. 

TRIAL AND ERROR: I picked the chairs up on sale at Anthropologie for like $40 apiece, which was a great find. However, it’s one of those lessons in buying furniture online before actually seeing it. The way the chairs are built, the center of gravity is slightly off, so if you lean forward a little bit you end up on the floor. My chairs always come with a warning. 

AHEAD OF ITS TIME: The clock on the wall is by an Italian designer and we picked it up from a shop in Philly years ago. It was one of those things we were drawn to immediately but we didn’t really have a place to put it. When we finally finished the kitchen we found a spot where we think it worked well. 

GIVE THE GREEN LIGHT: I find lighting really hard to wrap my head around, and I just really love light fixtures. The pendants over the bar and the sconces over the stove are from Schoolhouse Electric, and the dining room fixture is from Rejuvenation. 

OPEN HOUSE: The kitchen was originally closed off and there was a doorway on the left where the clock is now. With our kids getting a little bit older, it was important for us to renovate the kitchen because we wanted to open it up and get as much use out of it as possible. I think the only downside is that we used to use the dining room table a lot more and now, because we have that bar area, we don’t as much.