Hope High On Menu At Virginia Cafe

What would you do if you found out your child had a terminal disease? Most parents would do anything to help their child have a fulfilling and happy life.

Garth Larcen went one step further. He opened a restaurant where his son, and dozens of others - have found hope and inspiration. The Early Show correspondent Melinda Murphy reports.

It's not just the food or the live entertainment that makes the place worthy of its name: Positive Vibe. No, it's something more that makes this café special where everyone is welcome and anyone can work, a restaurant created specifically for people with disabilities.

Of the 24 paid employees, 14 have some type of disability like Jesse Williams, paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, who works in the kitchen.

"They gave me a job here," Williams says. "The work is the best thing about it."

Jesnique Medina works front of house. She's battling muscular dystrophy.

Medina notes, "I'm sick all the time so this was probably the first place that I went and got a job so I was really excited. They don't really act like I have a condition or I'm in a wheelchair.
The 70-seat restaurant is the brainchild of Garth Larcen whose 27-year-old son Max was his inspiration.

Larcen notes, "They don't feel like they're the exception. Quite honestly, they're the rule."

At the age of 8, Max was diagnosed with muscular distrophy - a terminal disease. Since then, Max has made the best of life, but it's never been easy. Finding a job proved especially difficult.

Max Larcen says, "I've gone to so many interviews and the interview would sound good and then for whatever reason, I guess they're nervous to get a handicapped person or whatever, and just don't call back."

Garth Larcen adds, "He became very upset and he became very withdrawn. His motivation was very low. He was not a happy guy. And as a parent, that's a very hard thing to watch. Whenever you see a child suffer like that, you feel compelled to do whatever you can do to help him."

So Garth Larcen opened a restaurant Max could call his own.

"It's really inspiring," Max Larcen says about working with other people who also have disabilities, "It just makes me feel good. If I have a bad day and then come and see all these people having a great day, it just makes me feel better. And it helps me to deal with the daily struggles I have because it's a positive thing to know that I have somewhere to come where I belong."

Disabled patrons also feel they've found a home.

"I never had a bar like here where I can just roll up and have a blast," Buzz Hickok says, "It kind of makes you feel a little bit more like everybody else."

Garth Larcen says, "The wheelchair bar was the first thing we decided we would have. The back in the kitchen is specially designed for people with disabilities as well."
From the artwork on the walls to the nightly entertainment, everything about this restaurant is about giving people with disabilities a chance.

Garth Larcen, who owned another restaurant many years ago, even started a training program there to give disabled students the skills they need to find jobs in the food industry.

Garth Larcen says, "You see them bussing tables or washing dishes or in the back preparing food and they leave work smiling and can't wait to come back, you know you're on the right track."

Viriginia Casey, an restaurant trainee with autism, says "I think it's wonderful working here."

Max Larcen adds, "It was just a natural fit to have people have the same benefit. You know, it's the kind of thing where you're kind of helping yourself, but definitely helping other people at the same time."

Max's Positive Vibe Café has given so many a chance they never thought they'd have. And his father says it's given Max something he never expected: a legacy and an answer to the question "why me?"

Garth Larcen says, "He wondered why it was him that was afflicted with this. And I think now he thinks far different about that. I think he understands that there was a purpose. We started to find that out when we see the faces of the people that work here; they're being trained here and as they move on, you start to understand that was the purpose."

The Positive Vibe Café is having a grand opening on Sunday, June 5. If you're in the Richmond, Va., area, check it out. Word from Murphy and her producer is the food is pretty darn tasty.

For more information on the Positive Vibe Cafe or to make scholarship donations online, click here.