Exactly Where I'm Meant to Be
Kim Morrison shares her journey from The New England Pasta Company to BeanZ & Co.
Kim Morrison in her office of the companies she co-founded: The New England Pasta Company and BeanZ & Co.
As I think back, the initial seeds of The New England Pasta Company began in 1984 at Francesca’s, an Italian restaurant in Shelburne, VT outside of Burlington. I had waitressed for many years, including while I attended the University of Vermont, and I now wanted to learn all aspects of the restaurant business: bartending, the kitchen, the books. We also produced fresh pasta and ravioli in a small room off the restaurant—this piece of the business was intriguing to me. I learned how to make pasta and ravioli using specialty machines. I also had the idea to sell these goods wholesale to restaurants and started getting accounts with restaurants in Stowe and Burlington.
Another idea surfaced, too.
I thought of opening a pasta shop in the Farmington Valley where I grew up. I felt it had a customer base that would buy fresh pasta at a price point that would make a business viable. I started collecting recipes and taking notes on wholesaling, and came up with a plan in my head. And then my parents divorced. I needed to move home and lived with my mom. My little idea was put to the back burner—at least that’s what I thought then. Turns out the restaurant experience I’d gain and the people I’d meet in the next few years in Hartford, Connecticut because of this pause were essential for the birth of Pasta Co. and BeanZ & Co.
I took a job at Lloyds Jazz Club on Washington Street in Hartford and met some of the jazz greats, including Harry Connick, Jr. and from there went to Shenanigan’s, a restaurant in a train car near the Bushnell that served breakfast, lunch and dinner. In December 1989, I was hired at the JP Morgan Hotel as catering manager of all social events and eventually became director of restaurants, managing the hotel’s restaurant, bar and room service. It was a big job in the hotel where the stars stayed in Hartford. I met them all: Luther Vandross, Bono, Janet Jackson, Neil Diamond, Bruce Springsteen.
The JP Morgan is also where I met my husband and business partner, Scott. He was a bartender at the hotel’s restaurant, America’s Cup Bar, working part-time while he was getting his master’s degree. He took me up on an invite to go out one night with work friends. We’ve been together ever since. Talking about the future as couples do, my pasta shop idea resurfaced—and it became our dream. Together, we wrote a business plan and my dad co-signed a bank loan that was approved. Scott and I quit our jobs and The New England Pasta Company was born.
Our first location was in Canton next to Buon Appetito. The space needed a lot of build out, but we were young and wide-eyed, and family and friends chipped in. We opened December 15, 1994—without a pasta machine and took orders. The machine was late in arriving that afternoon and we delivered pasta to the homes of our first customers. It’s a day that reminds me anything is possible and customer service is everything.
We were there for two years and realized if we wanted to be successful, we needed find a better location and signed a three-year lease in Old Avon Village. One year into our lease, on March 31, 1998, our daughter Megan was born, unexpectedly diagnosed with Down syndrome despite having tests prior to her birth that had ruled it out. It’s difficult to share what happened for Scott and for me in the days before and after Meg’s birth other than to say it was hard.
We had a baby who required medical attention and a business we had to run. Apart from Meg having Down syndrome and trying to wrap my mind around that, I’d soon learn she had a heart condition that required surgery. Scott was back at work the day the doctor came into my hospital room to give us the news. As the doctor started in with all the details, I asked him to leave and come back when Scott was with me. I couldn’t do this alone.
But there was a moment when things shifted for me. Late one night, I went to the nursery to see Meg and found her lying on her back wearing eye goggles, “tanning” under the lights for jaundice. She was as peaceful as could be. All the other babies around her were crying. The nurses let me into the room, even though they probably shouldn’t have. After observing the other babies as I made my way to Meg, I knew in my heart she was ours for a reason. “Thank goodness Meg is mine,” I thought. It was still so new, but I was ready. Meg was my baby from that moment on.
Meg had complications from her heart surgery that would lead to a tracheotomy. And honestly, the trach was harder than her disability. She could never be alone. Someone had to always monitor her. In the car, one of us drove and the other had to be with her. It was our mantra from the start with our business and now with Meg: Scott and I were in this together. For the next two years, Meg was with us every day in her little bouncy seat on the counter at Pasta Co. hooked up to a cool mist compressor to keep her airway clear.
When our lease was up, I was done. I wasn’t sure I could be the parent of a special needs child and a business owner. Scott started to go to school to be a teacher—a great career for a family. But in talking things through, he really wanted to keep the business. I promised him I would drive up and down Route 44—once. We knew that frontage on this main road was key. There was only one building open, which I toured and there was no way—it was 4,000 square feet. I told the landlord it was too big and he asked what I was looking for. Right next door, he had an available space exactly the size we needed.
The New England Pasta Company moved to 210 West Main Street. We built out three sections: a kitchen, a working area, and retail shop, and were there for 12 years. Our family expanded with our second daughter Mollie, and business expanded into catering and gourmet-to-go. Ten years in, we were bursting at the seams. We had more demand than we could service and leased a space a half-mile up the road as our back-up kitchen. It also had a 300-foot café. I thought how much harder could it be to run? It was. Apart from the café, being in two spaces wasn’t easy. We knew we needed to consolidate.
Our landlord showed me a 4,000 square-foot building on Route 44. It was way too big, but there was also something about it. So, I asked for the keys to go sit inside it alone and imagine what we could do. I couldn’t quite see it, but I could feel it. Something special was going to happen here. And so The New England Pasta Company and Café moved to 300 West Main Street—our current location—bringing both companies under one roof.
In early 2018, with Meg approaching 21 years old and aging out of state services, and with us looking to add new energy to our café, my longtime friend Noelle Alix and I met to talk about the possibilities of what could be next. She and I had been friends for 20 years, first meeting at a mother’s group for babies with Down syndrome. Noelle and I connected immediately. We were both working mothers, Noelle a telecommuting finance attorney in Big Law, and we were raising our girls in a similar way. Inclusion was always our view and over the years we involved our girls in inclusive organizations from Special Olympics Connecticut, to Best Buddies Connecticut, to CT Inclusive Arts.
As Noelle and I talked, inclusive employment seemed a natural fit for the café and for each of us. Soon after that first conversation—in a Starbucks no less—our imagining led to planning and within a few months on December 1, 2018 our Pasta Co. café became BeanZ & Co., an inclusive coffee café employing those with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities. It’s a place where the promise and potential of each one is respected and put to work—a place where everyone belongs.
As I look back on the past 25 years, I like to think life has a way of bringing you exactly where you’re meant to be. Scott and I are here because of life’s turns, the experiences, and the people, including Meg. With her medical needs, we didn’t franchise The New England Pasta Company, as Scott and I first planned (and as our name suggests). We have built something far more meaningful than we ever could have pictured when we began. We did it together, and with the help of family and good friends.
So, where do we go from here?
Scott, Noelle and I are visioning how we can create more jobs for those with IDD, more ways we can advocate so other employers will follow our lead. For me, when things get quiet at the end of the day, and I’m alone, I sit in my office and look out over what we’ve created, and my mind fills will ideas. I imagine all that will be next.
A restaurateur, caterer and TEDx speaker, Kim Morrison is passionate about making the world a better place to eat, work and live. Co-founder of The New England Pasta Company and the inclusive coffee café BeanZ & Co., Kim is eager to bring hope and inclusive employment opportunities to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). You can connect with Kim on Linked In or by email.
BeanZ & Co. is an inclusive coffee café employing people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities and demonstrates the possibilities in all of us. The coffee café serves breakfast, lunch, hot and cold beverages, and bakery items for take-out or eat in, and also offers catering services. BeanZ & Co. is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located at 300 West Main Street, Avon, Conn. For more information visit beanzandco.com and friend them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.