This new cafe in Toronto is proudly anti-capitalist
If you love your coffee served with a side of revolution, Toronto's newest cafe may be the spot for you.
The Anarchist Cafe has opened up at 190 Jarvis St. and strives to be a worker-owned, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop, and radical community space on stolen land.
Formerly Pop Coffee Works, the cafe opened by Gabriel Sims-Fewer was the result of what he says was the disconnect between his radical leftist politics and the person he had to be for 40+ hours a week.
With over a decade of experience working with specialty coffee, Sims-Fewer quit his job of over six years and opened a cafe of his very own where himself and others could feel more honest and free.
Currently, he's the only employee but hopes to grow the business into a worker-owned and operated co-op where every single person (himself included) is paid the same with all operational business decisions being made by consensus-based democracy free of managers or institutional hierarchy.
"I hope by openly declaring the business as anti-capitalist I can motivate people to think and ask about what that means, and let those who are already anti-capitalists of one kind or another know that this is a place for them, where their politics, ideas, and identities will always be welcome," Sims-Fewer told blogTO.
At the moment, visitors can expect a full menu of light roast espresso and filter coffees, including an extensive list of pourovers, made with beans from the former cafe turned house roaster, Pop Coffee Works, as well as a rotation of guest roasters.
Baked goods from Glory Hole Doughnuts and Nova Era are among those available for purchase.
There's also some on brand tote bags and books available.
Sims-Fewer says the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive with a ton of like-minded people coming out to support the new project.
"I knew the world was full of radical progressives, and hoping to meet more of them was one motivation for doing what I'm doing, but I didn't anticipate so much enthusiasm every day so early on," Sims-Fewer said.
"One thing I want to make more people aware of is that I'm doing Pay What You Can drip coffee, as the first of hopefully many attempts to make great, non-corporate coffee more accessible to the working class people who are increasingly denied the good things we all deserve."
"The specialty coffee industry is heavily involved in gentrification and neocolonialism and I really hope to learn more and find ways to resist, subvert, and challenge that involvement."
Hector Vasquez
