Ruth Thompson was teaching cooking classes to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in McKinney in 2008 when the idea started taking shape. Not a program. Not a workshop. A real restaurant, with real jobs, real wages, and real customers who came because the food was good. It took four years to build the model and three more to open the first location. Thirteen years after those first cooking classes, Hugs Cafe opened its Dallas doors on December 8, 2025, and the people who work there will tell you exactly what it means to them.
Simone Sterling is 19 years old. She works the register at 2918 Live Oak Street and remembers her first day on the job clearly. “It was fun and exciting,” she said. “I felt like they were going to love me and treat me like family.” Amber works in the kitchen, cutting fruit for the lunchtime bowls. When someone asked her what it was like to work there, she thought about it and said: “It’s a blessing. I like being treated like a human being.” That sentence stops you cold if you let it.
Eighty-one percent of the staff at Hugs Cafe have intellectual and developmental disabilities. The name is an acronym — Hope, Understanding, Grace, and Success — and it functions as a working philosophy. Every person who comes through the program is trained in food service and hospitality, paid a competitive wage, and given the kind of real work experience that builds a career rather than just a line on a resume. Executive Director Lauren Smith describes the vision as a world where people are recognized for what they can do rather than what they cannot. The cafe is how that vision shows up every morning at eight o’clock.
The Dallas location sits in the Wilson Historic District, on The Meadows Foundation’s 22-acre campus that houses 35 nonprofit organizations on Swiss Avenue. The Foundation offered Hugs a building and a rent-free lease, which means money that would otherwise go to overhead goes back into the operation and the people it serves. The White Rhino Coffee Foundation donated a fully automatic espresso machine, which is why the Dallas location has a more complete coffee program than the McKinney original. The building has blue and green striped awnings, an open kitchen visible from the dining room, and light coming through the windows in a way that matches the energy of the people working inside it.
The food is made from scratch daily, almost entirely. The bread comes from outside but everything else is made in house, and the menu is better than it needs to be. The Peach Gobbler Sandwich is turkey, bacon, and sharp cheddar with a housemade peach chutney that turns a straightforward sandwich into something worth coming back for. The PBLT is built on housemade pimento cheese alongside the standard bacon, lettuce, and tomato, and has been the most talked-about item since opening. The grilled cheese is herb cream cheese, cheddar, swiss, provolone, tomato, and bacon on toasted bread — a four-cheese grilled cheese served with tomato basil soup for $14 and worth every dollar. For breakfast, the biscuit sandwich with cheddar, egg, sausage, breakfast potatoes, and fruit is the move. The Morning Glory Muffins loaded with fruit and nuts are the thing to grab on the way out, and the Wedding Cake Cookies have developed their own following among regulars who plan their visit around them.
The coffee comes from White Rhino and is pulled properly on the donated espresso machine — lattes, cappuccinos, and espresso drinks that hold up against any specialty coffee shop in the neighborhood. It is not an afterthought. Nothing here is an afterthought.
Hugs Cafe has been named Social Enterprise of the Year by D CEO Magazine, is breaking ground on a $10 million headquarters and training center in McKinney this summer, and has started receiving requests from organizations around the country wanting to replicate the model. The Dallas location is five months old and already embedded in its neighborhood. Lauren Smith said she wanted Hugs to be loud and proud and fully embraced by the community. It sounds like they are getting there.
Hugs Cafe Dallas is at 2918 Live Oak Street, open Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., closed Sundays. More at hugscafe.org and on Instagram at @hugscafe.
