Our story
First, it was one stall.
Two job coaches, a folding table and a handful of trainees who were ready to work, not ready to be trained forever. Common Ground started as a weekend stall, because a classroom can only prove so much — a paying customer proves the rest.
From one café to a movement
Thirteen years of showing what's possible
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2013
Two job coaches open a weekend stall
Frustrated that skilled trainees had nowhere real to prove themselves, two job coaches set up a folding table on weekends — coffee, toast, whatever the trainees could confidently cook. It sold out most Saturdays within the hour.
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2016
The stall becomes a proper café
Enough regulars had asked for a real seat that the stall moved indoors — a small shopfront in Ang Mo Kio, open five days a week, with a rostered team instead of a rotating one. It was the first time anyone on the team had a payslip with their name on it.
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2019
Bridgework Singapore comes on board
Running one café well is one thing; training a steady pipeline of new hires is another. Bridgework Singapore, an employment-support programme, partnered with us that year to formalise the training — job coaches, a proper onboarding track, and a plan for a second kitchen.
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Today
Two kitchens — Ang Mo Kio and Tampines
Common Ground now runs public cafés in Ang Mo Kio and Tampines. Team members train and work with support from a Bridgework Singapore job coach, alongside colleagues and customers who treat the counter like any other café counter — because that’s exactly what it is.
Inclusion in action
A real shift, not a photo op
Every service is staffed by an inclusive team of different abilities, ages and socio-economic backgrounds — real training, real wages, real careers. Your order is what funds it.
Beyond the kitchen
A shift that counts as real experience
Every trainee who completes a season at Common Ground leaves with a reference, a logged set of hours, and — for most — a job offer somewhere else in food service if they want one. A few have stayed and now train the next intake themselves.
We’re audited each year against Singapore’s standard for disability-inclusive employers, the same bar any serious inclusive employer here works toward.
In their words
What regulars tell us
A few of the things customers have said at the counter, or left in a review.
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Regular, Ang Mo Kio
"I come for the steak and eggs. I stayed a regular because the same faces are behind the counter every week — you can tell they're actually building something."
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First-time visitor
"Didn't know the story going in. Ordered because the fish and chips looked good, found out the rest from the menu insert while I waited."
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Weekly regular, Tampines
"Booked our office lunch here twice now. Food's properly good on its own merits — the cause is a bonus, not the reason we keep coming back."
The story continues at lunch
The most useful thing you can do with all of this? Come hungry. Mon–Sat & public holidays, 9am–9pm, at Ang Mo Kio and Tampines.