A brand new coffee shop will be opening soon in Cumberland County, and this coffee shop plans to put purpose into every cup. Miller’s Brew, operated by Kim Molnar and Miller’s Crew, is planning a soft opening in December.

Molnar worked at Cumberland County Schools for almost three decades as a speech-language pathologist and specialist. She noticed that children with developmental disabilities, particularly high school students, weren’t given much-needed resources to qualify for jobs in the community. She saw this within the schools and with her son, who is autistic.

The first goal for Miller’s Crew, named after Molnar’s son, Miller, was to create vocational work labs in high school special needs classrooms. Miller’s Crew met their initial goal in just three and a half years. Now they have installed or helped donate fully functioning training labs in ten different high schools across three counties.

Phase two was the Miller’s Crew food truck, which launched last year.

The Cooking With The Crew food truck was established with the goal to provide job training, apprenticeship programs and employment opportunities for young adults with developmental disabilities.
It has become a staple at many events around Cumberland County. The food truck serves hot dogs, fries, grilled cheese, and tried and true food favorites, offering simple but delicious lunches.

“With the food truck, we are able to take adults with special needs and train them with skills that they can use in some kind of employment,” Molnar said. “We use our food truck as a training lab. We serve really good food, and we love being out in the community.”

Since the food truck launched, there has been a sharp increase of interest from families and individuals who could benefit from the work Miller’s Crew does. Molnar tells Up & Coming Weekly that when they launched, they were working with two crew members. Now, 15 families are interested and wanting to be involved.
The plan was always to find a hub for Miller’s Crew, but the large amount of interest from the community hurried the timeline.

“We really wanted that phase three could accommodate more adolescents and more adults with special needs to carry on with that skill set and then pipeline them to the businesses that we partner with,” Molnar said.

That dream was still a few years away. But with the success of the food truck and the large amount of interest from not just families, but also the community, phase three is coming a lot earlier that Molnar was planning.
When the building they were looking at in the Haymount area became available to rent, Molnar said that they jumped on the opportunity.
The new hub will be a coffee shop, called Miller’s Brew. Their tagline: Purpose in Every Cup.

“We believe everything they do in that building at that particular time with the training that we're providing, you know, there is purpose and they are learning a task that’s going to carry over to something meaningful, whether it’s in our coffee shop or in another coffee shop or another place of business. Everything we do while they’re there is teaching and training,” Molnar said.

Molnar said she hopes families can see their training center, see their crew members, and know that their loved ones with learning and developmental disabilities will be okay.

“It’s my goal and my passion and my belief that if a family walks into our training company and gets a cup of coffee, talks to a speech therapist, but sees Miller at 23 years old making a cup of coffee, interacting with customers, learning how to do things that, you know, at three years old, we never would have dreamed that he would have done. Our training center will be the visual pathway for those families that they can look and go, ‘Oh, he has autism or he has Down syndrome, or he has another developmental disorder. The future is not going to be so bad that I have to keep working,’” Molnar said.

“We are hyper focused — we train and we teach to the caliber of what somebody would get if they're going into a 30 minute or 45 minute or an hour PTO/speech session. When they come in to see the staff at our training company, that’s what they’re getting. They’re getting really good opportunities to grow and learn.”

The coffee will come from a roaster in Aberdeen. They will be serving basic coffee drinks, pastries and their famous food truck smoothies.
There is a plan for a soft opening in December and a grand opening to the public in January.

The shop is located on the corner of Olive Road and Morganton Road, where the old BB&T bank was located.
To find out more about Miller’s Crew, where you can find their food truck, or how to get involved, visit their website at www.millerscrew.com.