One look at its bright yellow coffee cups, napkins, and signage is an immediate giveaway that La La Land Kind Cafe is not your typical coffee shop.
Sure, the Dallas-based company sells a wide variety of organic coffee and tea beverages, but its primary mission is to “normalize kindness.”
The shop’s coffee sleeves and wearable merchandise — caps, T-shirts, and sweatshirts — are emblazoned with upbeat messages such as: “It’s a Beautiful Life,” “Be Nice,” “Be Kind,” “Just Love Each Other,” and “Make America Kind Again.” Customers who are not naturally inclined to such chipper proclamations might feel drawn to the more straightforward missive found on one sweatshirt: “Don’t Be a D**k.”
The young baristas, clad in brown aprons with the words “Kind Army” embroidered in sunny yellow floss, practice the store’s message of kindness. They greet customers with a smile and a compliment before sending them on their way with a delicious beverage and a cheery “I love you!”
La La Land’s founder and CEO, Francois Reihani, explained in an interview how he recognized that coffee shops and hospitality go hand-in-hand. He also realized that coffee drinkers tend to frequent the same shops, making them perfect test subjects for his master plan to make the world a better place by “normalizing kindness.”
Reihani believes that many people have not been told “I love you” in a very long time, and some may have never even said those words to someone before. He suggested that while people might subconsciously notice what makes someone else beautiful or unique, society has not been trained to vocalize those thoughts and feelings to others, especially to strangers.
He hopes that as customers become accustomed to receiving compliments and hearing those expressions of love on a regular basis, they will become comfortable enough, in turn, to share compliments and kind words with others. Such expressions can totally turn around a person’s day, he suggested.
Reihani does not just give lip service to the idea of kindness, he claims it is a way of life. His inspiration for the business grew from his work with a non-profit group he founded to support youths who have aged out of the foster care system.
According to Reihani, 50% of all homeless persons have come out of the foster care system. He created the We Are One (WAO) project in 2017 to help provide youths leaving the foster care system with everything they need to become “self-sustaining, happy adults,” including housing, job placement, schooling, and therapy.
He soon learned that finding and keeping a job without work experience, transportation, or family support was difficult for many in the program. Having a background in the restaurant business, Reihani landed on the idea of the coffee shops as a way to give these people an opportunity for a first job and a leg up into the working world. The first La La Land Kind Cafe opened in Dallas in 2019.
Young adults in the WAO program receive eight weeks of on-the-job training, customer service experience, and mentorship while working as paid interns at the coffee shop. They learn to be accountable, show up on time, and other necessary life skills. In addition, they find a place of acceptance and support in the family-oriented atmosphere of the coffee shop.
At the end of the eight weeks, the interns can choose to continue working at the coffee shop, or they can ask a program counselor to help them find another job that better suits their interests. Participants can remain in the WAO program and receive mentorship and assistance for the rest of their lives if they wish to do so.
Reihani describes the WAO program as a work in progress, which the organization is continually striving to improve. In the long term, he hopes to create a platform that can work for all types of businesses. The nonprofit has already shared its program with Walmart and Taco Bell.
The company has five locations in the DFW area, two in Houston, and one in Santa Monica, California.