Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025
Mark ’84 and Stephanie ’84 Cartier are the co-founders of No Limits Cafe
by Adam Grybowski
When their daughter was on the precipice of adulthood, Mark ’84 and Stephanie ’84 Cartier eyed the labor market with alarm.
Labor statistics had consistently shown that four out of every five Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities were unemployed. Although they felt confident in the future of their daughter, Katie, who was born with Down syndrome, the statistic nagged at the Cartiers.
“We knew we could help her get a job, but we recognized there was a huge societal problem,” Mark says.
The couple began entertaining entrepreneurial ideas that could help create meaningful employment for this often-overlooked population. One night in the spring of 2017, Stephanie caught a segment on the nightly news about a cafe in Texas staffed exclusively by adults with intellectual disabilities.
Mark, who was then a government bond trader on Wall Street, and Stephanie, a Morgan Stanley employee turned stay-at-home mom, had no experience operating a restaurant. But after an inspiring visit to Hugs Cafe in McKinney, Texas, they decided that’s exactly what they would do.
Their restaurant, No Limits Cafe, opened in 2020 and now employs more than three dozen individuals with intellectual disabilities. The Red Bank, New Jersey, cafe, which operates as a nonprofit and is sustained through community support, aims to provide the same level of service customers would receive in any other restaurant. The cafe’s mission goes beyond employment to also raising awareness that those with intellectual disabilities are as worthy and capable of employment as anyone else.
“The opportunity for meaningful employment exists for everyone, and we have seen how the cafe has changed even the way some parents look at what their own sons and daughters are capable of,” says Mark, who left Wall Street to dedicate his work to No Limits.
Although current law allows employers to pay workers with disabilities less, No Limits begins all employees at minimum wage with the potential for growth. The cafe’s training program, the Suzanne Hatfield Training Program, which provides entry-level restaurant and hospitality skills, also pays workers during its 10-week duration.
“We believe the dignity of a paycheck is extremely important,” Mark says.
To date, about 70% of the people who have completed the training have been placed in jobs outside of the cafe, and 100% of those individuals have kept their job for at least an entire year, according to Mark, who has witnessed many employees bloom with self-confidence and self-reliance. “Watching the transformation in these individuals, it gives us great satisfaction and fulfilment.”
Two years ago, No Limits added a food truck to its offerings, and the Cartiers also hope to expand in other ways by partnering with other community-based organizations as well as colleges and universities to bring a form of their cafe to campuses. “Expanding to college campuses,” Mark says, “is not just about creating more jobs, although that is great, but working to shape the way the next wave of educators and business leaders see adults with intellectual disabilities and their potential.”
Since No Limits opened, Katie, the Cartiers’ daughter, finished a four-year post-secondary program at George Mason University in Virginia for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Although she still helps out when needed, she turned out to be the first employee to leave No Limits Cafe, accepting a job at a nearby restaurant chain.
“When our employees saw her in her new uniform, that inspired them to go out and get other jobs,” Mark says. “When someone leaves our restaurant for another job, that’s one of the great outcomes because what we are seeing is them advocating for themselves.”