Slow Bloom is the culmination of a years-long struggle by former employees of Augie’s Coffee, a beloved Inland Empire chain that shut down in the summer of 2020. Father-and-son owners Andy and Austin Amento blamed the COVID-19 pandemic, but workers claimed the closure happened because they had formed a union.
The workers filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which ruled that the Amentos’ actions were illegal. That led to a financial settlement with the fired employees, most of whom had moved on to other jobs. But 15 had stuck together, selling cold brews and roasts online and at popups with dreams of opening their own shop.
With settlements in hand and tens of thousands of dollars in Kickstarter funds gathered by fans, the remaining Augie’s alumni opened Slow Bloom last spring as a worker cooperative — one of just a few such spots in the U.S. coffee industry. Everyone has an equal ownership stake, everyone has a say in every decision. Everyone makes $19 an hour and shares in the tip pool. They distribute any profits among themselves at the end of every quarter according to how much each person worked.
Read the rest at the Los Angeles Times
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