The Greater Boston coffee shops where baristas call the shots

Restaurants

“There is sort of a hunger for something that works better for workers.”

Worker-owned coffee shops are thriving across Greater Boston offering its baristas and servers equal pay, shared ownership, and a community-first approach.  

Under a cooperative model, employees earn the same wage, are able to grab into business ownership which creates equal share in leadership and decision-making. It also means recommending sister cooperatives and other local worker-owned businesses to customers. 

Greater Boston’s three worker-owned cooperative cafes — Cafe Reynard in Malden, New Leaf Espresso in Somerville, and Circus Cooperative Cafe in Cambridge — operate as sibling businesses. The three operate as their own separate entities, but share workers, trading supplies, and exchange tips on best business practices. 

Known for its single-source, home-roasted pour over coffee, Cafe Reynard in Malden is a trans-owned and unionized cooperative cafe. The cafe opened in February and has a staff of three worker-owners and two other baristas, who will be eligible to grab into the worker-owner model after 6 months at the business. 

Worker-owner and founder Roxy Martinez-Dobbs offers $20 per hour to its staff, and chose the cooperative model because it is the “most just” and democratic way to run a business. 

Worker-owner Athena Jacobowitz Teatum said running a coop doesn’t “funnel money upwards to one person at the leading of a power structure,” like traditional business structures often do. 

“It works well for cafes particularly because it’s sort of a community way to run a business,” said worker-owner and treasurer Rebecca Rosshauer. 

“Our company’s success is determined by if everyone here is happy and making a living wage,” said Teatum.

According to Teatum, worker-owners knew the current business structure wasn’t working, and instead sought to “structure this differently and make it more egalitarian.”

Located inside of Razors Barbershop, New Leaf Espresso opened in December. From the takeout window, customers can grab their coffee to go or from the espresso bar, clients can stay for an Italian coffee, shave or both.  

Owner-workers Eoin Jaquith and Andrew DeBenedictus, who worked together at 1369 Coffee House in Cambridge began at the same time, discussing opening a coffee shop of their own last August as part of their five year plan. However, the espresso bar space at Razors became available in October and the two jumped at it. 

Jaquith had always admired the cooperative model and said “it didn’t really make sense to impose hierarchy” on a crew of six employees who currently earn $16 per hour. 

New Leaf doesn’t yet have a plan for becoming worker-owned because so far, none of their employees have expressed interest in putting their dedication to the business on paper.

Offering live track every Sunday, the Somerville cafe serves Hoodsie cup affogatos, some of Cafe Reynard’s roasted coffee blends, and pastries from Lionheart Confections, thanks to Cafe Reynard’s connection. 

Over in Cambridge, Circus took over the former Darwin’s cafe space on Putnam Avenue in September 2023 with its four worker-owners who were former employees of Darwins coffee chain.

Darwins’s announced the closure of its last three cafes in late 2022 following its employees attempt to unionize, like many other coffee shop employees in Boston, according to The Boston Globe.  

Embracing the cooperative model, Circus serves up coffee from another cooperative business, Equal Exchange, pays employees $1 more than minimum wage, and offers free books, zines, masks and COVID tests for cafe goers. 

As shown with Darwin’s, the opening of these cooperative cafes comes alongside numerous cafes in Greater Boston fighting to unionize. 

In June, all seven Blank Street Coffee locations in Boston and the 20th Starbucks location in the state voted to unionize. In May, five of the six Massachusetts Blue Bottle Coffee locations closed following a walkout in response to stalled contract negotiations. 

While management plays a role in a traditional cafe, “the rank and file workers at a coffee shop do most of the running of the shop,” said Jaquith. “You learn all of these skills and eventually are like, maybe I could do this myself.”

“There is sort of a hunger for something that works better for workers,” said Martinez-Dobbs. The cooperative model is popular for coffee businesses because of the endless demand for the product and the lower risk of entering the coffee business due to that. 

Under the worker-owned model, New Leaf established a rule that there are no authoritative roles, just experts on certain topics that other workers can turn to for information and support, Jaquith said. 

The cooperative model is becoming increasingly popular for cafes “because they are often already community focused businesses” and “ethics is already there” with interest in fair-trade coffee sources, said Rosshauer.