All about our GRAND OPENING!

Author: Julia Fieldhammer

Brother Andre’s is a coffee shop with a mission! The idea for the cafe came to the Fitzgerald’s after they were looking for meaningful work for their son Patrick to do. Patrick, who has autism, loves to bake with his mom Terri, so that’s when the idea for Brother Andre’s was born. The café’s patron, Saint Andre Bessette, also struggled to find employment because of his sickness and frailty.

 In 2019, the Fitzgerald shared their thoughts with Father Chris Donley, president of Move a Mountain Missions. Father Chris loved the idea and saw the opportunity to make Brother Andre’s a part of Move A Mountain Missions. Move A Mountain Missions is an organization that helps serve the most vulnerable in Jamaica as well as here in Pittsburgh. Father Chris and Dan Gallagher, his co-founder, thought Brother Andre’s would be a great opportunity to offer employment to adults with disabilities, here in Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately, a couple of months after they started to move forward, COVID-19 hit. COVID slowed everything down. Brother Andre’s opened exclusively online in November of 2020. Even though the team got a lot of online orders, it just wasn’t what they had in mind. The cafe started opening to the public on Palm Sunday, April 5, 2021. Then over the summer Brother Andre’s did a trial run beginning to open to the public on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s and it went extremely well.

At long last, the official Grand Opening is coming up on October 2, 2021. As the Brother Andre’s blogger, I am very excited to spread the news and share our story. At our grand opening we will, of course, have lots of good coffee and cookies. We will also have music and a few speakers to talk about Brother Andre’s and our mission.

Brother Andre's currently employ 6 adults with disabilities. We want to give the employees a purpose and an opportunity to share their talents. I’m so excited about having Brother Andre’s cafe opened full time and being their blog writer. I think this job can benefit me in many ways. I can improve my writing skills and expand my writing portfolio. I can also meet new people and get to know them and their stories. After October 2nd we will be open 7 days a week. Monday - Friday 7AM to 4PM. Saturday, 8AM to 12PM and of course Sunday after 10AM mass. We look forward to getting to know all of our customers and we hope you’ll stop in and get to know us!