Mike Santiago serves customers at Muddy Waters' grand opening. (Photo by Rachael Horowitz)

Muddy Waters Café on Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard looks more like a living room than a coffee shop, with facing leather couches and coffee tables creating a familial atmosphere. Owner Ntozake Lundy talks with every customer who comes in an attempt to provide a sense of community. But what makes the café even more distinctive is the kind of staff she hires.

Lundy found an employee – just one so far – through recommendations from the Fortune Society, an organization that supports convicted felons after they’ve been released from prison. She began hiring former inmates as a favor to a friend, and has employed about five Fortune Society workers during her years as a café owner.

Lundy hosted Muddy Waters’ grand opening earlier this month. “We went through contractor, permit and electrical hell,” said Lundy, who acquired the space in July 2008. “It’s over now. It’s kind of like pregnancy pains, but I’m happy with the finished product.”

After operating cafés in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Lundy began looking for a new location last year. “I pounded the pavement,” walking streets and riding buses in search of an open space, “and got really lucky.”

Lundy doesn’t like to overemphasize her hiring practices. “Someone is not gonna dig a felon making their sandwich,” she explained. But she has had good results with people who need a second chance, she said, and that’s why she continues to hire them. “I have better experiences with former felons than with college students,” she said. “I found them a little more tenacious and hard working.”

Mike Santiago has been out of jail for nine years, but said that having a felony conviction has made it difficult for him to find work. “Off-the-book jobs would accept me, no problem,” he said. Before joining the Fortune Society, he mostly did plumbing, electrical work, drywall and flooring jobs for employers who kept no records, and he had scant hopes for career advancement. He didn’t have a real future in this type of work, he decided.

New York state law prevents companies from using a felony conviction as grounds to avoid hiring someone, but Joelle James, senior director for career development at the Fortune Society, said that it often happens, yet is difficult to prove. She coaches members to apply to businesses known to be “former offender -friendly.”

Santiago’s connection to the Fortune Society brought him to Muddy Waters, where he has so far found satisfaction in his work, and is enthusiastic about becoming a barista. “It’s important to be happy with your job,” he said.

As for the café, “it’s what we need,” said Julius Clay, pastor of Williams Church on Adam Clayton Powell, which has not yet seen the kind of commercial development sprouting on nearby Frederick Douglass. He added, “You can’t stop change.” Since the café’s opening, Clay has been a daily customer.