Common Grounds Cafe

On January 16th 2008, Common Grounds Cafe was opened by Julie Martinez as part of our parent organization People For Care And Learning (PCL), with the vision of creating a missional business that gives poor and disadvantaged people in Siem Reap a working chance. We believe that instead of handing out handouts, we should give people the opportunity to work in the hospitality and restaurant industry.

Over the past 11 years we have provided training and jobs to dozens of Cambodian young people, and we have ecstatically cheered them on watching many of them go on to successful careers, some of them working in some of the top hotels and restaurants Cambodia has to offer.

Dalath Loeut, one of the 13 initial employees, was hired in 2008. He comes from a poor rural family in Battambang Province and had no prior job experience in the industry. He started working with us as a server and through hard work and dedication he learned and worked his way up taking on more and more responsibility. Dalath was promoted to Common Grounds manager in 2015. He now oversees all of the day-to-day activities. He is now on the other side of the spectrum, providing hope to young people with similar backgrounds to himself.