(Daily360.com) – The innovator of the “pay what you can” system of sales at his Toronto coffee shop, “The Anarchist,” recently announced that it would be closing its doors after just one year. However, days later, the owner updated the website’s page saying that the shop would remain open a while longer.
The closing, according to the initial statement, was not the fault of ownership or its policies but rather that of “ethically bankrupt sources,” who failed to supply this venture with proper “seed capital.” Owner Gabriel Sims-Fewer said it was a great experience living and doing business in a way that does not embrace the “pure misanthropy of Capitalism.” Sims-Fewer further said despite his coffee shop closing, he viewed it as a huge success and he planned to take all the valuable lessons he learned from his ‘success’ to his future business projects. He also said, “F*** the rich. F*** the police. F*** the state. F*** the colonial death camp we call ‘Canada.’ Solidarity.”
Now, however, the website has been updated to say that the shop would not be closing down by the end of May as planned. The owner wrote that thanks to a “huge influx of support” along with publicity from “Christian Conservatives of Texas and Florida,” the coffee shop would continue to run for the time being. He indicated that the shop may be relocated, but that he’s still not sure what the future will look like.
Sims-Fewer had a frequently asked questions section on his website where he addressed his “pay what you can” coffee price. He wrote that his goal was to make higher end coffee something all people could enjoy. He said he hoped more expensive items which were not priced in this manner would offset the losses. Sims-Fewer pivoted to race with this coffee issue claiming specialty coffee is a luxury of the “white upper middle class” which angers him and inspired his novel coffee price structure. He said his goal would be to hire people who are minorities, then have those employees be equal owners and let them take lead so that place would not be as “white-male-centered” as the typical coffee shop. Another business called “Mina’s World” in Philadelphia closed recently after its employees demanded ownership “redistribute” the resources of the company among the staff.
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