Bathurst's Café Viva to open to paying customers from September 22

Café Viva, which is coordinated by disability support agency Vivability, has been offering free drinks all week as staff learn on the job and will begin to serve its first paying customers from Thursday.

The café is located within the grounds of the Cathedral of St Michael and St John, the church having partnered with Vivability to deliver the initiative.

Vivability chief executive officer Nick Packham said it is an exciting time for the team of eager workers.

"The whole team is pretty excited about the café and they are feeling confident," he said.

Café Viva is more than your run-of-the-mill coffee shop, with the business devised to provide employment opportunities for people with a disability, who will receive award wages for their work.

Mr Packham said several baristas have been hired and 15 people with disabilities will be working in various roles at the café.

"Some people will be learning to make coffee, others will be doing food prep, and other guys will be assisting with the setup and pack away each day, all of the myriad of roles that are involved in running a café," he said.

Black Market Coffee has been brought on as the coffee supplier and has provided training to the café's staff at its location in Marrickville and on site in Bathurst.

The training has prepared them for the first week in business, where the café has been slowly coming to life at the cathedral by providing free drinks to passersby.

"We've been getting great feedback about the coffee and the coffee is a bit different. It's got a different flavour to most of the coffee in Bathurst, but the feedback has been great and our guys have been refining their coffee skills," Mr Packham said.

Café Viva will be open seven days a week from 8am to 2pm.

In addition to drinks, the café will serve gourmet cakes, pies and pastries sourced from Bakehouse on Wentworth in Blackheath.

There will be outdoor seating in the cathedral's garden for those who want to dine out, or people can use the Hey You app to submit an order for pick-up on the go.

Mr Packham can't wait to see the café thrive and serve its main purpose: quality employment for people with disabilities.

"The whole reason that the café exists, like the Bathurst Cleaning Company and Viva Eats, is to provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities," he said.

"I believe that employment is a bit of the untapped area for people with disabilities. I know [Australian of the Year] Dylan Alcott is talking about the untapped workforce in terms of people with disabilities and I think it's true.

"A lot of people have the skills to be employed and we're certainly wanting to give them the opportunity to do that and learn new skills."

Before the end of the year, Café Viva will also be providing a community lunch once a week for anyone who needs a meal.

It will be of no cost to the customer, with the initiative to be sponsored by local businesses.

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