A link to this page will be included in your email.
Back when we were running one espresso machine and serving two tables, you could drop in and find a lazy Scrabble game or rowdy debate between regulars and baristas. You'd bump into friends, meet neighbors, and soak up the community chatter. We've grown, but the meaning in our work still comes from the neighborhood. Fans tell us that they come in for the spellbinding brew and the local flavor. Local flavor is key. We don't want to be on every street corner in America — we just want to really be in the few places we've chosen. We want to be a positive presence on the block.
Pubs, piazzas, and beer gardens enliven the towns and cities of Europe. In the USA, public gathering spaces have become more removed than they once were from residential areas. Sure, fast food chains, coffee chains, and donut chains proliferate, but suburban sprawl and single-use zoning have created many commercial and residential districts that function as separate worlds. We've seen the difference a locally-minded, neighborhood cafe can make. People really come together and chance meetings make things happen.
Sociologists say that espresso bars are an example of the “third place” — inclusive gathering spots outside of home (the first place) and work (the second). When people socialize over coffee, they build a sense of community across boundaries of age, economics, and level of education. It's been observed that in the absence of third places and the social networks they create, people can feel isolated and put undue stress on their work and family lives. So our approach has been to provide the coffee and the space to draw folks out of their bubbles and into their neighborhoods.
Some areas of Gimme! Coffee activity:
Neighborhood cafes in NYC and Upstate New York Philanthropy and action that helps sustain communities Film festivals, AIDS relief, and other local events
If you eavesdrop in the best espresso bars, or wiretap the right web connections, you'll hear passionate exchanges between lovers — coffee-lovers, that is, and they'll be talking about coffee. Our fellow baristas and coffee geeks around the world are working hard to improve the quality and sustainability of specialty coffee. We're supporting the “community brain” approach by:
Publishing origin and tasting data on our coffee list Sharing our knowledge in “Barista Manual 1.0” Traveling to origin with peers and industry specialists Hosting trade events for a wide audience
In our cafes, the locals sip the global. Coffee grows in distant regions, but coffee growers are really not that far away. We're all connected through the choices we make. From seed to cup, farmer to consumer, we're trying to strengthen these connections by traveling to meet farmers and sharing our experiences:
Relationship Coffee Las Mingas Project, Colombia Mesa de los Santos Farm, Colombia Malinal Cooperative, Mexico Farms of Antioquia, Colombia
Local organic milk for the tots, big-people drinks for the 'rents. At our State Street espresso bar.
Working with coffee growers and walking the farms makes our world a LOT smaller. At the Las Mingas farms, Nariño, Colombia.
Each Gimme! neighborhood has its own feel. Our Williamsburg, Brooklyn, storefront.
Saturday morning at the original Gimme! Coffee on Cayuga Street, Ithaca.