The nonprofit cafe is run by and for the neighborhood, with a board made up entirely of Englewood residents, and its apprenticeship program puts roughly 15 people a year into part-time and full-time work, many of them previously unemployed or underemployed. Co-founder Phil Sipka has said going nonprofit was deliberate — nobody has a financial stake in it, so the point stays the point.
Beyond the chai latte and sandwiches, the space hosts whatever the neighborhood brings to it: knitting circles, author events, karaoke nights, yoga classes. Roughly 25,000 visits a year come through a building that didn't have much of a public gathering space before this one existed.
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