A coffee shop in Canada that operated on a “pay what you can” model has decided to shut down just a year after starting operations as the business failed to generate enough revenue.
“Unfortunately, the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left me unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term,” the announcement said. “[Expletive] the rich. [Expletive] the police. [Expletive] the state. [Expletive] the colonial death camp we call ‘Canada.’”
The “pay what you can” model was applicable to drip coffee, which lost the shop money. The system was subsidized by more expensive drinks.
A White Male
Sims-Fewer has earlier made posts apologizing for being a white man. On the website, he characterized his gender and race as being privileged and offered to compensate for it by hiring people from minority identities.“I am a white, cisgender, queer man. When I used to daydream about opening my own café, the idea always left a bad taste in my mouth because I also feel that the world doesn’t need more things owned by people at my particular intersection of privileges,” he wrote.
“The best thing I think I can do is hire people who aren’t white, cisgender, heterosexual men, make them equal owners, and follow their lead in making the place less white-male-centered than the industry standard.”
Employee Revolt
The Anarchist is not the first woke business to shut shop. In July last year, a café in Philadelphia that prided itself on being “queer-owned” shut down after employees revolted against the owners.The café, “Mina’s World,” was owned by two queer activists, Sonam Parikh and Kate Egghart. Mina’s World promised to treat black and trans employees better than other coffee shops which had white owners.
Employees also demanded that owners redistribute their business to the workers. The workers attempted to raise $200,000 through GoFundMe to buy the building where the shop was located as well as a share of the business. However, the effort only raised nearly $11,000. Mina’s World eventually shut down.