This is the first place in Hong Kong staffed entirely by the mentally disabled - everyone, from the cooks to the waiters, dishwashers and even the cashier. The 18 staffers may not be able to talk, read or count, but here they work efficiently and no differently to other restaurant workers.

Pedal Cafe staff are not paid while they are being trained, but there are many wage-earning disabled employees in catering businesses throughout Hong Kong. McDonald's has been employing disabled staff since the early 1990s. KFC and Cafe De Coral followed suit and in 1997 the Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service opened a cafe in Kowloon Tong where those with disabilities work alongside able-bodied staff.

There are no half-measures at Pedal Cafe. Located on the first floor of the Aberdeen Tennis and Squash Centre, staff members learn to work in a real-life environment. Depending on individual progress, the training lasts from three months to a year. Students are taught various skills, from serving customers to changing money and cooking.

Pedal Cafe is more than just a sheltered workshop, it reflects a new approach to teaching the mentally disabled in the workplace. In the past, vocational training was either based in workshops or classrooms.

Such training can be risky, says Wong Siu-kee, centre manager of Hong Chi Pinehill Advanced Training Centre.

'Students who are not used to contact with the outside world may not be confident when they are put in a real environment, with pressure from complaining customers and bosses. They can feel very upset,' Wong says, adding that in some serious cases they became so discouraged they refused to work any more.

To create an environment where they could be gradually introduced to the realities of work, Hong Chi initiated three businesses: a cleaning service, a convenience store in Tai Po Hospital and then the Pedal Cafe.

Hong Chi had the idea for Pedal Cafe for some time but it wasn't until last year that the project caught the eye of the charity HK Human Powered Vehicle Asso-ciation. It donated $210,000, the proceeds of its annual Pedal Kart fund-raising event, and was the starting point for the enterprise.

This enabled Hong Chi to renovate and fit out the 800-square-foot cafe. It also rented a snack kiosk on the ground floor to train potential vendors. Now the Pedal Cafe bustles with clients, who range from squash and tennis players to nearby residents, many of whom are regulars.

Allowing the mentally disabled to serve customers on their own was a daunting prospect at first.

'The trainees were scared at seeing strangers,' says Chiang Kwai-seng, the cafe superviser. 'Some just stood still at the door, and dared not ask the customer to sit down . . . others spilled coffee on the plates.'

Not surprisingly, there are other mishaps. The students sometimes give too much change and many of them are slower than customers expect. But Chiang stays cool and handles situations calmly.

'I simply go over to the table and explain that the students are disabled and then the customers understand,' he says.

But the day-to-day training has proved remarkably effective and the staff are now not only confident with customers, but genuinely polite.

The food on offer includes soup, sandwiches, toast, salads, noodles and rice dishes.

Chan Chi-wai, 20, is a typical trainee. He deftly serves a mother and son sitting by the window. It is hard to distinguish him from waiters in other restaurants, except that he is extra polite and smiles broadly, in stark contrast to many of Hong Kong's surly servers.

It is housewife Tam Fung-yee's second visit, but she doesn't realise that the workers are mentally disabled.

'They seem no different to normal people, they are good,' she says.

Her 10-year-old son offers somekind words too, saying, 'They are better than many people who have no problems, they don't bang food down on the table.'

Hong Chi's Wong can vouch for that. As a former physical education teacher, he worked as a volunteer with the mentally disabled in a Red Cross event in 1975, and that experience helped him make the decision to work in this area. He says: 'The mentally disabled have many strengths. They are loyal, stable, and hard-working. They may be low in intelligence, but they are reliable and consistent.' Others might find such jobs boring, but those with disabilities often thrive on routine work.

Employer Joseph Chan Kwun-kau of Dynasty Korean Restaurant agrees. Last year, Chan offered a mentally disabled casual worker a full-time job after he showed great aptitude for dispensing promotional leaflets on the streets. 'Unlike other teenagers who threw them away, he was honest and gave them all out,' Chan says. 'He even politely asked people to come and try the food, and some did come.' Now the boy has also learned to wait tables in the restaurant.

At Pedal Cafe, each of the staff has their own area of expertise.

Chan Chi-wai is the best cook. His signature dishes include baked chicken wings, chicken fillets in maize sauce and garlic pork chops. And he is keen on kitchen hygiene too, insisting hands must be washed before handling food.

'Food has to be germ-free,' he says. Chan is 20, but with his slight frame and childish hairstyle, he looks barely in his teens.

Asked what dishes he can make, Chan says with a proud smile: 'I can cook everything . . . except abalone and shark's fin.'

The trainees at Pedal Cafe are from all backgrounds, including a boy from a wealthy family and a teenage orphan from a Tai Po public housing estate.

After he graduated from a special school in 1999, Chan entered Hong Chi to learn the skills that would enable him to earn an independent living.

What is important as a good employee? Chan says they should be 'hard-working, polite - and they mustn't be late'.

Ng Kei-lung, 22, is another hard-working young man. Every day he stands before a sink, carefully washing dishes.

'Once they know they can do the job, they are happy,' Wong says. 'They are pure and real.'

Ng answers questions thoughtfully. When he doesn't know the answer, he remains silent. Wearing a blue jacket and a pair of Yasaki sport shoes, he is similar to other teenagers. An only child from a North Point family, he says his parents love him a lot.

Ng started working here in February and, like Chan, will graduate in August. Asked where he wants to work in the future, he says innocently, 'here'.

Leung Chi-ho, 23, is the kiosk vendor who also helps out in the cafe and is a good conversationalist.

Unable at first to use a calculator, Leung could only count on his fingers when giving change to customers, but later he learned how to use one. Now his favourite job is adding up bills, and practising his few phrases of English.

Chan, Ng and Leung are all confident that they can find jobs after they graduate from Pedal Cafe, but the reality is different.

Although most of Hong Kong's 139,022 mentally disabled people have Form Three education, social workers believe more than half of them are unemployed.

Discrimination is the main reason. Many employers think them 'slow and foolish', says Sunny Siu Lap-kei, the Labour Department's senior labour officer (selective placement). Since September 1996 to the end of April, the Equal Opportunities Commission has received 28 complaints of discrimination against mentally disabled people. Of these, six are related to employment.

The economic downturn is also to blame. 'Even able people have difficulty in finding jobs, so it becomes even harder for the mentally handicapped in hard times,' says Helena Au Sin-suet, head of the Rehabilitation Service Division of Yang Memorial Methodist Social Service.

Social workers are urging the Government to provide more public education about the abilities of the mentally disabled and provide more funding for training. Hope is on the way, according to the Social Welfare Department, which intends to increase the number of subsidised places of Supported Employment from 1,280 to 1,860 in 2001/02. Set up in 1989 and since expanded, the programme subsidises voluntary groups to employ and train mentally disabled in their own businesses, working with able employees.

The Pedal Cafe continues to build on its success. It makes a monthly income of $30,000, and its revenue is growing quickly, says Wong.

This will soon make it possible for the cafe to employ some trainees, and the group is planning to open another such cafe later this year.

So far, Pedal Cafe has trained four disabled employees, and all of them have found jobs in fast-food shops, restaurants and hospital canteens, enabling them to make a living by themselves.

Pedal Cafe: First floor, Aberdeen Tennis and Squash Centre, No 1 Aberdeen Praya Road. Do you want to offer a job to staff at Pedal Cafe? Call Hong Chi Association at 2664 3620, or the Labour Department's Selective Placement Division at 2852 4801.