Tonight in Wayland Town Center, people will step through a storefront at 43 Andrew Ave. that has been empty for more than ten years. They will be wearing closed-toe shoes because the floor is still a construction site. The space is set to become The Guild Café by Revival. According to Graffito SP President and Founder Jesse Baerkahn, quoted in The Wayland Post, the building has gone without a tenant all that time. The café's opening is planned for spring 2027.
The two organizations behind the café have worked together since 2019. For most of that time, the work happened where customers couldn't see it.
Four students, one hour a week
The Guild for Human Services is a nonprofit based at 521 Virginia Road in Concord. It was incorporated in 1952 to serve youth with visual impairments. Today it serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. On its fundraising page, The Guild says it serves around 160 people a year through educational, residential, and clinical programs. Every student has an individualized vocational training plan starting at age 14.
Revival Café + Kitchen came into that picture in 2019. A Guild post from May 6, 2019 described the start of a new community work partnership at Revival's Cambridge location. Starting in late March of that year, four Guild students each worked one hour a week there. They assembled bakery boxes, stocked the beverage coolers, and put the Revival logo on bags and boxes. A Guild job coach drove the students to Revival and stayed through every shift. Each student also had a visual checklist for the tasks.
Shawn Massak, then The Guild's employment services manager, gave a short report in the same post: "The manager at Revival has nothing but positive things to say about our students."
That was the first version of the partnership. It ran on supported shifts and stock-room tasks, and the students worked away from the counter where customers order.
Meanwhile, a coffee counter in Concord
The second version had started a few months earlier, on The Guild's own campus. The school's Coffee Shop opened on August 27, 2018. By April 2025, roughly 300 students had worked there, according to a Guild post titled Something's brewing at The Guild Coffee Shop.
The Coffee Shop is a small operation, but it covers the whole job. Students work in 30-minute blocks. They set up the equipment, take and prepare orders, run the register, deliver to offices in the building, and clean up at the end of the day. It is open two hours each weekday and serves about 30 coffees in that time. Staff match tasks to what each student is working on. A student building math or social skills might take the register. A student working on mobility and dexterity might deliver orders around the building. The menu is hot and iced coffee, hot chocolate, and bagels. Since 2018 the team has added syrup flavors, an espresso machine, a new payment system, and online ordering.
The Guild says students over 14 are paid for the shifts they complete. Its vocational services page describes staff who work as job developers and job coaches. It also names Revival as one of the program's community work sites.
Put the three settings side by side and the Wayland café is the step that combines the first two.
| Revival, Cambridge | Guild Coffee Shop, Concord | Guild Café by Revival, Wayland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Started | Late March 2019 | August 27, 2018 | Planned for spring 2027 |
| Who walks in | Revival's customers, served by Revival staff | People in The Guild's building | The public, on Andrew Ave. |
| Work described | Bakery boxes, coolers, logo labeling | Orders, register, deliveries, setup, cleanup | Meaningful work for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, per The Guild |
| Hours | One-hour weekly shifts | Two hours each weekday | Open early each day, per Baerkahn |
What Andrew Avenue adds
The Cambridge partnership had a public setting with the work kept in back. The Concord counter put students on the register but served only people in The Guild's own building. Wayland combines the two in one storefront that anyone can walk into.
The Guild's Wayland café page calls it an accessible community space built with Revival, where people with intellectual and developmental disabilities will have meaningful work. The fundraising page uses the phrase "a cafe for everyone." It also describes the café as a place to "work, connect, and belong" for people with disabilities and the wider MetroWest community. In the Wayland Post report, Baerkahn described a café that "will open early each day, serve scratch-made food and coffee, and provide an inclusive gathering place for the community."
Revival handles the food side. Liza Shirazi and Steve "Nookie" Postal founded it in 2016, bringing together Shirazi's coffee background and Postal's culinary experience. According to Patch, the locally owned company runs cafés in Cambridge, Somerville, Watertown, Boston, Lexington, and Allston. Revival's own site lists seven of them: Alewife, Davis, Watertown, Milk Street, Necco, Lexington, and Allston. The Wayland café will carry The Guild's name, with Revival's after it.
The Guild's fundraising page explains why a storefront matters, citing a survey commissioned by Special Olympics. It found that 21% of working-age adults with intellectual disabilities are unemployed and 28% have never had a job. The Coffee Shop post adds that working in the community can be an important step toward competitive employment.
Tonight's hard-hat preview
The preview is a fundraiser called Hard Hats & Red Cups, running from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. It isn't held inside the café. It takes place at 57 Andrew Ave., an empty retail space across the street from the future café and directly across from X Golf. Look for Guild signage at the entrance. The details below come from the Givebutter event page, which also handles registration.
- Tickets: General admission is $50. It includes food from Revival Café + Kitchen plus beer, wine, and nonalcoholic drinks. Beer and wine are served only to guests 21 and over with valid ID.
- The tour: Guests can walk through the café space while it is still under construction.
- What to wear: Dress comfortably. Closed-toe shoes are recommended because the space is unfinished.
- Parking: Free parking is available on Town Center streets and in two lots. One runs from Stop & Shop to Middlesex Savings Bank. The other sits directly behind Boston United Volleyball Club.
- Check-in: Tickets arrive by email. Show yours on your phone or bring a printed copy.
- Extra gifts: Guests who give more toward the café receive perks, including event recognition, gift cards, and Guild Café swag.
All proceeds go toward opening the café. As of early November, the campaign had raised $22,840 of its $25,000 goal from 47 supporters. Questions go to [email protected].
The rest of the block
The café is one of three new tenants Town Center's owners have signed.
New City Microcreamery is leaving Sudbury and moving into the former Takara space in spring 2027. In a notice to customers, the owners said the bigger space will let them serve more food. The company started with one storefront in Hudson and has five locations 11 years later. Its ice cream is made by freezing cream with liquid nitrogen. Owners Karim El-Gamal, Michael Kasseris, and Jason Kleinerman also run the Rail Trail Flatbread restaurants. Mathnasium is opening an after-school math learning and tutoring center in the former Supercuts space.
All of this is happening as Town Center's new owners mark their first year this month. Over the summer, they submitted plans to the Planning Board to upgrade gateway signage, turn Elissa Avenue into a pedestrian street, and strengthen Town Center's connection to the Rail Trail. Patch reported that those site improvements could debut in 2027, the same year the café is scheduled to open.
The tenants are new to Wayland, but the Guild café's working relationship isn't. Revival and The Guild have been training together since 2019, and the Andrew Ave. café is where that partnership opens to the public.
At Rutledge Properties, we follow Andrew Avenue one storefront at a time, from the café build-out to the Microcreamery move and the Elissa Avenue plans. If you want to know what next spring's Town Center will mean for a home on your side of Wayland, call us. You'll talk with one of our agents directly. Work With Us.
