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View Full Version : Anti-capitalist ‘pay what you can’ café in Toronto closes after one year in business



Teh One Who Knocks
05-17-2023, 02:44 PM
By Allie Griffin - New York Post


https://i.imgur.com/6VpSUX6.png

A self-described “anti-capitalist” café and coffee shop in Canada named The Anarchist with a “pay what you can” business model will close at the end of the month after just over a year in business.

The Toronto shop, which opened in March 2022, will close on May 30, its owner announced in a statement, blaming a “lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources.”

The café offered drip coffee to customers with a “pay what you can” price tag while charging for other beverages like espresso and tea drinks as well as breakfast pastries to subsidize the lost revenue. It also allowed the public to use its restroom and hang out in the storefront without making a purchase.

The store also carried a selection of radical books, art, pins, T-shirts and more for sale.

The so-called “anti-capitalist café, shop and radical community space on stolen land” raised eyebrows when it first opened — especially among conservatives and supporters of capitalism.

Locals also criticized what they said were high prices at the coffee shop — calling the owner hypocritical for charging so much when he claimed to be against capitalist values and desires.

Despite its closure, shop owner Gabriel Sims-Fewer called his short-lived business endeavor “a huge success” that sparked debate, raised the blood pressure of conservatives and experimented with “living and working in ways that don’t enthusiastically embrace the pure misanthropy of Capitalism.”

“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,” he said in a statement on The Anarchist website.

He ended his statement with a batch of expletives.

“F–k the rich. F–k the police. F–k the state. F–k the colonial death camp we call ‘Canada,'” Sims-Fewer signed off.

DemonGeminiX
05-17-2023, 05:45 PM
I'm surprised he lasted this long.

Teh One Who Knocks
05-17-2023, 05:51 PM
I wonder if GF knows he lives in a 'colonial death camp'? :-k

lost in melb.
05-17-2023, 07:51 PM
I'm surprised he lasted this long.

Positive change takes time :d

Teh One Who Knocks
05-18-2023, 02:24 PM
Positive change takes time :d

I think that's the problem, they were getting negative change...and negative dollars as well. Who would have thought that if you allow people to 'pay what they can' that a vast majority of people will choose to pay nothing. I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!





:shockface:

lost in melb.
05-19-2023, 01:51 AM
I think that's the problem, they were getting negative change...and negative dollars as well. Who would have thought that if you allow people to 'pay what they can' that a vast majority of people will choose to pay nothing. I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!





:shockface:

Humankind was not ready for this type of restaurant.

Mind you, they used a similar model for a restaurant chain in Melbourne and it worked. They emphasized it was charitable, though. So if you had money you were encouraged to pay something. :)

Godfather
05-23-2023, 06:36 AM
It's just so funny that you'd try to capitalize... with the theme of communism :lol: The owner seems like such a prick too.