By Mirandah Davis-Powell

Juliann Fitzgerald is at Abilities Diner and Bakery seven days a week. In a day’s work, she’s a touchpoint of support for everyone in the diner, depending on where she’s needed. She jumps in on the kitchen’s line, preparing breakfast orders on the griddle. She helps stock the back, greets customers as they walk in and helps bag baked goods in the bakery. 

And Fitzgerald does it all with a smile; she loves her work. But in the back of her mind, there’s a sinking feeling about how to keep her business afloat while she struggles to make ends meet during the slow months. 

Abilities Diner opened in March 2024, but it all began in Fitzgerald’s garage. She opened a bakery as an employment opportunity for her son, Alex Perez. 

After months of trying and finding internships with little to no pay, the pair couldn’t find consistent employment for Perez due to his disability. Now, she employs over a dozen staff, including her son, each with a disability that makes it difficult to find employment elsewhere. “We give them the chances that everyone should be entitled to,” Fitzgerald says. 

With their first anniversary on the horizon, she reflects on the struggle it’s been to keep the diner operational in recent months. “I’m over $300,000 in the business,” Fitzgerald says. To keep the business going, she says she’s dipped into her savings and retirement, sold her motor home, and taken out a $50,000 loan to keep the doors open and pay her staff. 

On the morning of Friday, Feb 14, when Fitzgerald came into the diner to prepare for opening, she was met with a mess on the floor. Her candy bowl and a cup of pens had been knocked onto the ground amid broken glass from the side door. Security footage shows an unidentified individual breaking into Abilities, taking the cash register and leaving the scene, all in just four seconds. “The police said that they had literally never seen a smash and grab that fast before,” Fitzgerald says.

With costs to repair damaged equipment and a stolen register that contained hundreds of dollars in cash, Fitzgerald is out thousands more after the break in. Part of her feels like she’s lost her sanctuary, saying, “I’m here 12 to 15 hours a day, and this was the first day that I was afraid to be in here.” 

Abilities still opened its doors on the morning of the break in. For Fitzgerald, it was essential to keep pushing forward to maintain a sense of normalcy and comfort for their customers and her employees. 

“We’re just going to move forward,” Fitzgerald says. “There’s no sense dwelling on it or getting upset because it’s not going to fix anything.” 

“I’ve had so many people say, ‘Why don’t you just throw your hands up in the air and walk away?’” Fitzgerald says, “And I tell them that it’s because I believe in what I’m doing.” 

Her desire to keep the business afloat is rooted in her passion for supporting people with disabilities. She seeks to employ folks from all walks of life, regardless of prior experience. The key, she says, is seeing their desire to play a role in something larger than themselves. 

“I love seeing people grow and move on from here,” Fitzgerald says. “I miss them when they’re gone, but I love knowing that Abilities was their foot in the door.”

Accessibility is at the forefront of all of the decision making at Abilities. Certain bakery items are available under a “take what you need, leave what you can” model for those who may not be able to afford a meal. 

Additions and substitutions to meals are never met with judgment. When one customer requested to have their meal blended to accommodate a difficulty with swallowing whole foods, Fitzgerald’s response was “Yep, we can do that for you.” 

They serve diner-style comfort food in the cozy, open-plan atmosphere. A regular customer, Terry Steiner, remembers the first time he visited, initially curious about who filled the vacancy in the location that was once Falling Sky Pour House and Delicatessen on Blair Boulevard. “So I came in and I tried it out. The food was great,” he says, so much that he kept coming back. 

He describes the portions as “quite adequate” for the price, regardless of which plate you order. His favorite is the Reuben sandwich, served with house-made corned beef and crunchy sauerkraut. For Steiner, it’s nice to see that Abilities has a guiding mission alongside it. “In today’s world, when there’s not so much good stuff going on, this is one of the few things that is,” Steiner says. 

Another loyal customer, David Van Der Haeghen, brings his two young boys by Abilities every week. His kids play with the toys available in the front of the diner, enjoying the breakfast options served into the afternoon. “You can go and get pancakes anywhere,” he says, but it feels valuable for him to go to Abilities. 

For Van Der Haeghen, it’s “The emphasis on a space where folks who are in many cases marginalized — through no fault of their own — have the ability to engage and to thrive, where they can make mistakes and learn from them and build transferable skills.”

Fitzgerald’s hope is to keep Abilities Diner and Bakery running, dreaming of the day she could operate several locations. “I’ve got close to 100 resumes in my office of people that want to work here, which tells me how great the need is,” she says. 

It all comes back to her core belief that everyone should be treated fairly, given an equal opportunity and have a great meal in the process. “We want people to feel comfortable here — we treat people the way we want to be treated,” she says. “It’s everything — the service, the food, the ambiance and the mission all together that make it what it is.” 

Abilities Diner and Bakery is open 7 am to 2 pm daily at 790 Blair Boulevard. 541-603-9888. AbilitiesDinerandBakery.com and find on Facebook.