June 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Back in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars across the United States. By 2022, that number had shrunk to 21. This year, a group of friends in Brooklyn joined a recent resurgence of such queer spaces—and set it up as a worker-owned coop, to boot.
Boyfriend Co-op is part cocktail bar, part coffee shop, part workspace. Designed to feel like “a queer living room,” it’s all about ethical, sustainable practices—from its cooperative ownership structure to local ingredients to thrifted furniture. And it’s an example of how coops can be used to solve the problem of disappearing space for queer women.
In today's episode, we hear from Hena Mustafa, one of Boyfriend’s four co-founders, about their journey working with a co-op- focused lender to turn the concept into a fully mapped-out business.
Boyfriend Co-op is part cocktail bar, part coffee shop, part workspace. Designed to feel like “a queer living room,” it’s all about ethical, sustainable practices—from its cooperative ownership structure to local ingredients to thrifted furniture. And it’s an example of how coops can be used to solve the problem of disappearing space for queer women.
In today's episode, we hear from Hena Mustafa, one of Boyfriend’s four co-founders, about their journey working with a co-op- focused lender to turn the concept into a fully mapped-out business.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt media like I have the spaces where I could
be very queer, and sometimes I have the spaces where
I could be really air up.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But rarely are there places where I could be both.
And I'm really happy that so far our boyfriend is
able to feel like a safe space for multiple different
identity markers.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is Lucas Grindley from Next City. I show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems suppressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Back in the
nineteen eighties, there were more than two hundred lesbian bars
across the United States. By twenty twenty two, that number
(00:50):
had trunk to twenty one. But in today's episode, we'll
learn about one community driven effort to bring them back,
at least in Brooklyn, where we find the Boyfriend co Op.
It's queer coffee shop by day, cocktail bar by night.
It's also a worker owned cooperative designed to feel like
your queer living room. Boyfriend offers everything from drag bingo
to live streams with your neighborhood bartender, all shaped by
(01:13):
a team that operates collectively without the usual top down hierarchy.
We'll talk with Hannah Mustafa, one of Boyfriend's four co
founders and the brand and events director, about how a
long running joke between friends turned into a real plan.
It wasn't easy. They spent months working with a co
op focused lender to turn their concept into a fully
mapped out business, and we'll talk about why co ownership
(01:36):
isn't just part of the mission, it's the whole point. First,
let's check in with NEX City's senior Economic Justice correspondent
Oscar Periobello, who first covered this story in April. So
part of your beat Little Unusual is that you have
more than once covered this problem of lesbian bars disappearing
(01:56):
in most cities. Spaces for queer women are just vanishing.
So what's happening?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
There are multiple reasons. There are multiple factors that play here,
from just cycles of real estate, gentrification and development. You know,
back when there are a number of lesbian bars was
around two hundred. We were talking like in the eighties. Right,
Technology has also changed the preferred platforms ways spaces for
(02:25):
queer women have changed, have multiplied in a sense, but
they're sort of coming back around like, yes, we should
have these kinds of spaces too.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, we go from two hundred spaces in the eighties
to like twenty now and even fewer in New York
City around twenty.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Across the whole country, there's more today, and there's been
a kind of resurgence, which is part of what the
story is about.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So the way it's researched, at least in this one story,
is that they've launched a co op that is part bar,
it's part work space, in part coffee shop. And you
say that the unconventional ownership structure, to the menu, to
the furniture, everything about Boyfriend co Op is an expression
(03:11):
of its co founders in their community. Why do you
say that?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
It's really just literally what they told me, you know,
when I asked them, why do you want to start
a business this way? It's much harder, it's more challenging.
There are as many lenders that work with cooperative especially
work around cooperatives. There's only so many classes, organizations people
that teach how to how to run a cooperative business.
So why do it this way? And in basically four
(03:39):
separate conversations within the span of several hours, all of
them said in different ways, and it was the only
way we wanted to start and run a business was
as a worker own cooperative, democratically owned and managed by
the workers.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
They just felt it was the right way to do it,
like that this was a representation who they are in
their values.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Was to share ownership, their ownership, share governance, you know,
not necessarily like day to day responsibilities. You know, you
sort of still split up like okay, what you know,
which coffees do we buy or which cocktails you create?
Just sort of still split up by by function, but
like you know, the larger business decisions, uh, you know,
(04:22):
wage levels and benefits and HR policies, all those sorts
of things that typically fall on the shoulders of one
person or maybe two people, and it happens behind closed doors,
but the workers not really having an input into those things.
They felt like they wanted to do this collectively, to
(04:45):
share those responsibilities. It's it's it's it's just a better
representation of their values as people, and especially when it
came down to like ownership structure and who profits when
this thing does well. Not wanting to have that typical
start sure of one entrepreneur or one owner at the
top reaping all the profits off of the backs of workers.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So the thing I'm wondering is is there any world
in which you could say that being a worker cooperative
makes them more resilient in some ways to all the
other things that you know led to the disappearance of
this space.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah. So, you know, a couple of months ago, we
also had Next City. I also published a story about
how there was this nonprofit in New York City that
couldn't find an executive director to fill the shoes in
the previous executive directors, And that was very much a
(05:43):
story about burnout because they couldn't find anybody who could
really take on that, who really wanted to take on
that burden and could take on that burden. I can
imagine how previous generations not being a work or cooperative
parts of how some of those spaces closed down own
where the owners just really deciding, you know, we don't
we don't want to do this any way, we want
(06:04):
to retire. And you know, for these for the founders
of Boyfriend co Op, it's co op, it's definitely a
sort of resiliency kind of strategy to share the burden
of running and operating a business among the group collectively.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, that's a good point, and it's something you see
across cooperatives all over like every sector. And one of
the things that struck me in your story was a
co founder saying they had learned about cooperatives from the
food justice movement and then just started thinking, well, I
wonder if this could work for you know, creating space
for queer women. And that's interesting that you can actually
(06:42):
take this model from one place to another.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Well, it's about the principles, right, the food just movement,
not necessarily building work our own cooperatives, but building food
co ops, you know, community owned, consumer own cooperatives, right
the parks of food co Op and other food co
ops across the country, these are consumer cooperatives, not necessarily
work on cooperatives, But it's the principles, right. So cooperatives
(07:08):
have these like seven principles that they all use around
the world. Some of them talk about it more, some
talk about it more than others. Some of it and
don't ask me to recall them all of them right now,
but well, you know one of them is co ops
helping co ops. So like some of the cooperatives, for instance,
they'll they'll you know, if they're a bar maybe they're
(07:29):
going to buy their bar tops, their countertops from a
worker owned stone and tile company, because there is one
of those in Brooklyn, It's called Brooklyn Stone Entile. So
co ops helping other co ops, right, that's just one
of the principles, and that's really what transfers from one
from one sector or one space to another. Are the
cooperative principles that drive cooperative businesses around the world, from
(07:54):
co ops from more, from consumer co ops to work
or co ops to financial cooperatives like credit union.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Boyfriend co op has lots in common with credit unions,
grocery stores, all these other places.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, one thing we need to talk about in the
story is how the business got funded. So the working
world is the CDF islander that specializes in worker own cooperatives.
I'm learning this from your story and they are where
they went for this loan. So explain why was it
important that you needed someone who specialized and work her
own co.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Opts From the barer side, if you want to be
a worker on cooperative, if you go see what conventional
credit union or bank, you're going to have to do
a lot of explaining about why your ownership structures this way,
what is a worker on cooperative? And you might get
(08:46):
a lot of funny looks, you might get a lot
of blankstairs, you might get some you know, some nice
polite smiles. But I don't think this is really for
us kinds of conversations because it is rare. You know,
there's maybe there's only a few hundred worker owned cooperatives
across the United States today. Not very many banks or
credit unions have experience working with them. Who do you have?
(09:09):
There are a few loan funds. CDFIs conclude loan funds
like the Working World that exists specifically to invest in
worker owned cooperatives, either new ones or converting conventional businesses
into worker owned cooperatives. So this is all they do.
(09:29):
So they understand that ownership piece of the business model,
and they also understand how to work with these kinds
of worker owned cooperatives to.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Get through a lot of the things that a normal
small business has to go through, all the underwriting, all
of the business planning, all the business modeling and projections.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
And this was also really important for a boyfriend co op.
They're repaying these loans, right, there's two things here of
the repayments, so the working world is structured so that
you only make a payment on the loan if your
business earns a profit in that month. Oh wow. It's
(10:12):
called the technical term for it is called royalty based financing.
The working world calls it non extractive financing. But in
this way, the repayments on the loan don't jeopardize the business.
You're only making a repayment if you make a profit
in that month. And then number two, when boyfriend co
ops starts to make those repayments, it really matters to
(10:34):
them that it's going back into a loan fund that's
going to continue to make investments and other work owned.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Cooperatives, cooperatives, helping cooperatives.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, cooperatively cooperatives. The Working World is also part of
a national network called seed Commons, which they're not called
the Working World in every city. Every city has a
different has a different organization. But in New York it's
called the Working World. In Baltimore it's called the Baltimore
round Table for Economic Democracy. In the Bay Area there's
Cooperation Richmond.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I didn't know that. I heard of seed comments. I
didn't realize it was different. Everywhere. That's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, So there are different members of this network called
seed commons, and the whole network invests in worker own
cooperatives all across the country. The more success boyfriend co
operate has, the more success the whole network of worker
cooperative loan funds has as collectively to whether we able
(11:29):
to invest in more worker o on cooperatives across the
country as a result.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, last thing I'll ask you is if if someone
goes to a boyfriend co op, any recommendations from the menu?
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Okay, so my recommendations off the menu. As a journalist,
I must I must always start by recommending what is
their version of the espresso martini. So it's called the
Monus forty. It's named after the first known openly lesbian
bar in San Francisco. And there's also the Delighted Dear Carmela,
(12:01):
which is I like it because it does I like
the grapefruits, blood, orange bits of it. It's a run
based cocktail. Carmela is the first lesbian vampire on screen.
She was also one of the first.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Lesbian vampires in literature, if I'm not mistaken. And then
so those are the cocktails who all recommend and then
of course on the beer side, they served like beer
a Friend co Op.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yes, they do.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Teaser previous episode, previous episode, I love it. After the break,
co founder Hannah Mustapha joins us to talk about how
a long running joke between friends became Boyfriend co Op
and how they built the space rooted in identity, community
and shared ownership. Welcome back. Before the break, we were
(12:57):
talking about what it takes to launch a worker own
cooperative and why that model offers a different kind of resilience.
Now we're joined by someone living the story, Hannah Mustafa,
Brandon events director and one of the four co founders
of Boyfriend co Op in Brooklyn. So they say that
every joke has a hint of truth to it. So
(13:18):
tell us about this long running joke that you had
with you and your co founder. I guess that someday
you were going to start a lesbian co op.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Basically, my best friend and I from childhood. We've known
each other since we were twelve thirteen years old, and
once she, Mika, had started learning about cooperatives, we both
just like geeked out on it, her more than me
because she was immersed in that environment, but me via
her and our first adult trip together, we went backpacking
(13:50):
through Turkey and Greece, and that's sort of when the
joke formed of like, oh my god, we should totally
start a co op. It should be a lesbian co op.
And that's the long running joke. I think we were
like twenty and now Mika turned thirty the time we
(14:10):
started training our staff and I'm twenty nine, so almost
a decade long joke.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh my gosh. And so when did you realize that
it wasn't a joke.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think it was a different joke that made us
believe it. But we were at a friend's birthday three
years ago, three and a half years ago at this point,
and she was a lesbian, as were the majority of
her friends, and we were all kind of just talking
about how we wish there were more lesbian bar options,
(14:44):
or like, oh it takes me two trains to get
to a lesbian bar, or it takes me forty five minutes,
or I don't want to go into Manhattan, or you
know whatever the insert complaint here was. And I said,
don't worry you, guys, Mika and I are opening a
lesbian bar. Everyone got so excited. It was like twenty
five hungry lesbians, like eager to go to this fictitious
(15:07):
place I mentioned, And I was like, oh, no, no,
we're just joking. That was not real, and everyone was like,
oh damn, you know, I wish it was. So the
next day Mika and I had a conversation and we're like,
that would be crazy, right, but we're crazy. So you
did it, and that was the day it became real.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
You've already geeked out about co ops, so there's some
knowledge there for sure. How did you get in touch
with the working world which is specializing in co ops
and were you at all worried that they would get
it the idea for a boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, Mika was already familiar with the working world. She
doesn't claim this for herself, but I call her the
co op Queen of New York City. But she's just
like really immersed in the cooperative scene in New York
and Northeast in general, And so she had been really
tapped in and was familiar with the working world. She
worked at start Dot co Op, so she knew a
(16:09):
lot about like cooperative initiatives in New York City and
like co op development and people who were transitioning their
existing businesses into co ops or starting their own co
ops from scratch. So she was like very familiar with
them and knew immediately that they would be like values
aligned with us.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
What was their reaction when you pitched it.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I don't think they had like a wild reaction one
way or the other. They were just like, oh, yeah,
that's so clever, and we do need more lesbian bars
in New York City, and this is a great idea.
You just need a lot of development on your business plan.
And we worked with them for like six months at least,
but by the time we got approval, so we were
(16:51):
like pre approved and they have this like get them
to the yes model where it's like not yet, not yet,
not yet yes. So we worked together for a while
time before we got our loan approved.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
What does that mean? Work together for people who might
be thinking about doing this? Would they have in store?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So they would look at our business proposal, our business
model and be like, Okay, adapt this, adjust this, condense this,
work with a lawyer on this. And then they really
helped us develop our financial projections and like a very
specific breakdown of how much funds we needed and exactly
what the funds would be used for. So they would
(17:31):
give us these little like homework assignments of like find
a list of twelve businesses that share at least two
of your business models, like boyfriend is the first queer
coffee cocktail cooperative, so there wasn't really another business to
model after. But we could find like queer co ops
or queer coffee shops or queer cocktail bars or cooperative
(17:53):
coffee shop or cooperative cocktail bar. So we would find
places that hit two out of the four business models
in New York City, ideally like in Brooklyn or off
a similar train line, and we would go in for
like sometimes six hour chunks and just count how many
people would walk through the door, or like the average
(18:15):
number of drinks purchased per person. And we would do
this like on a peak hours, on slow hours on weekends,
on weekdays, and also chat with business owners and ask
them questions. And these were sort of like the prompts
given to us by the working world to help us
input data for our pro forma to make educated guesses
(18:39):
about when we would break even, when we would turn
a profit if we got this loan, how long it
would take us to pay it back things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
That's great because it really puts you in a much
better place than maybe it would have been had you
been doing a for profit model. I don't know that
you get that kind of support. I'm told that wanting
to be a co op was partly in response to
your experience and experiences of your co founders, you know,
working in other places. How did that play out?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, I think for so many of us, like we
would not have opened a cafe bar if it wasn't
a co op. Like the co op was so foundational
to the vision. Mica had always known that she was
going to or always wanted to open a co op
one day. She didn't know what would be with me,
or that would be a lesbian cafe bar, but it
(19:30):
was like, you know, if I ever started business, it
would have to be a co op, Like that's you know,
my my it would match up with my principles. And
I think the thing that drew in so many people
to the project was the like worker owned aspect of it.
And I think the service industry, especially at such a
high turnover rate and so much like dissatisfaction in the workplace,
(19:54):
and so to be able to give people more autonomy,
more financial literacy, more trans Farncy is like the only
way we would have felt comfortable having a business.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
After the break, Hannah shares her advice for anyone thinking
about starting a space like this. She also talks about
what it means to build something collectively and why she
is most excited for Boyfriend to grow beyond the founding team.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
We love the queer spaces that exists, but there's just
really not that many in the center women and non
binary folks, trans folks, and there are really not many
of their own by people of color support to us, and.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So we were like, there should be more in the city.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Are we crazy enough to do it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Welcome back. That's the voice of Mika Fisher, Hannah's longtime
friend and one of the four co founders of Boyfriend
co Op. This was recorded during an in person visit
to the space.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
And I have been working with cooperatives for years now
and that is.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
At the center of this business model.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
We always nay, we wanted to do a cooperative and
it's really important to us to provide ownership opportunities for
the people that are putting in the labor to make
a space work.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
When I spoke with Hannah. She was in the back
room at Boyfriend co Op getting ready for the Memorial
Day weekend. The bar was still very new, and of
course they had some fun plans on the calendar.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well, tonight we have a drag queen coming to host
a queer bingo. It's called Not Your Boyfriend's Bingo, And
basically we're entering our seventh week of open But my plan,
as like the events coordinator, is the first three weeks
of events programming to be as like experimental as possible
(21:47):
to see what the community resonates with. And I'm just
kind of saying yes to anyone who wants to host something.
So we're testing to see, you know, which drug artists
people really like, or which type of events people really
respond to, or what kind of yeah things bring in crowds.
(22:08):
So this will be our first being go night, and
I'm excited to see how that goes. But also because
it's a co op, we're trying to give our workers
as much like agency and autonomy over how they contribute
to the business's growth. So another thing that's happening tonight
is one of our bartenders, Emily, pitched an idea for
(22:29):
like a behind the scenes with the Boyfriend bartender. So
she's gonna log into our Instagram and do an Instagram
live and like livestream cocktail making, and so that'll be
happening too, which I'm excited about. I get really excited
anytime a worker pitches an idea and executes it. So
(22:50):
excited to see what that does to our online presence
and how it translates to people coming in.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, I feel like seeing that on the boyfriend install
would feel very real in a different way than maybe
at a different bar. I don't know, like it might
be one of those things that I was wondering about,
where would anyone know that this is a co op? Right,
Like if they went in the doors and they were
looking around, would anything really be different? And it's maybe
(23:16):
it's those small things that are different that people might notice.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think not a lot of people know what
a co op is, and even the people who do
will like often associate it with like food cooperatives or
grocery cooperatives, or even like producer co ops or housing
co ops. So I think like service industry cooperatives in
the US especially are like very foreign to the average person.
(23:43):
They were very foreign to me if it wasn't for Meca,
And I think like we want to be able to
engage our clientele in that I think we're really like
visually identifiably like a leftist space based off of like
the RT we have and the Palestine flags throughout, and
like just like our bulletin board and the type of
(24:07):
content that's on it. We have like a stack of
war crimes newspapers. So it's like we're identifiably left But
I don't know if we're identifiably a co op. And
that's something that we're definitely like trying to push at
every angle because one thing that's really important to our
ethos is like encouraging cooperative business. We really hope Boyfriend
(24:30):
becomes a model for other people to start their own
co ops. So yeah, it's definitely something that we're attempting
and that we want to put more effort and energy
into as well.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I know you're only a couple months in at this point,
but you must have had maybe a few reservations about
one just starting your own business or maybe it being
a work or co op. How have those played out
in reality?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know, to be completely honest, I did not have thosetions.
I think I was just so delusional and naive that
I was like, this is just a great idea. It's
going to be super smooth and perfect. I mean not
to that extent obviously, but I think, like it hit
me later how crazy it was. Like I knew it
(25:19):
was crazy the whole time, but I was like, I
think when Week and I started it, we had anticipated
that we could have done it in like a year.
It took us three years. But we were really humbled
every step of the way, like New York City real
estate construction, the employment process, opening, staying a float, like
(25:39):
every step has had its own unexpected bumps or challenges.
But never did I question the decision. There were maybe
a few times, like in the real estate process, where
I'm like, if we don't find a space by the
end of the year, maybe it's time to move on.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
But we did.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
We found a space, and we stuck with it and
now open and it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You have any guidance for someone who might be listening,
who maybe they want to start a third space, I'd
call this a third space. Any guidance on like persisting
through all.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That, Yeah, I would say, like you need to be
a little bit delusional to do something like this, and
you need to have business partners that you trust, Like
we were so lucky with the partners that we found,
Like Mika and I have known each other half our lives,
but the two people that we partnered with, Nat and
Casey were people we didn't know before this process started,
(26:46):
and they were so pivotal to bring this vision to life.
And like, finding people who share your values and your
ethics and your dedication to the project are so important.
And I mean, we made this joke about when we
interview people, we have to ask them how crazy they are,
(27:06):
because if they're not crazy enough, they can't handle it.
And I think it has a grain of truth to
that as well. But you just have to keep going
and know that every obstacle is temporary, in the obstacle
that comes next is probably bigger, but will seem smaller
down the line.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I love earlier that you described it as a like
a clearly leftist space, right and it's a political space.
There's a lot is happening there. It is a bar,
slush coffee shop and other things going on. But I
feel like in the history of queer spaces, there's always
been access to activism and like movement work and things
(27:49):
like that, And I don't know if that's intentional on
your part to kind of honor that history or it
just feels natural anyway.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Probably a little bit of both. But I also do
think like there there was a lot of purposeful intersectionality
in the creation of Boyfriend. There are not many queer
spaces run by people of color. A lot of like
the queer scene is dominated by white people or sis people,
(28:18):
and doing something different felt necessary, As like a Palestinian lesbian.
There have definitely been like radical queer spaces that I've
assumed I would feel comfortable at and hadn't. And there's
also a lot of like Zionists in big roles in
(28:40):
the queer scene, so like to create an anti Zionist
space was really special and really healing for me. I
think sometimes like I have the spaces where I could
be very queer and not sometimes I have the spaces
where I could be really Arab, but rarely are there
places where I could be both. And being able to
build that and being able to see like other queer
(29:03):
Swana people feel like safe and seen in this space
has been really special, and I know that there's like
a lot of other people on our team with different
identity markers that have felt the same, like prioritizing like
intergenerational clientele or prioritizing trans clientele. They are things that
(29:24):
you would assume have more outlets, but still feel so
like precious. And I'm really happy that so far Boyfriend
is able to you know, feel like a safe space
for multiple different identity markers.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I love that, and you're right so far, But let's
think five years into the future. I don't know, what
do you hope when you walk in the door a
boyfriend it feels like they're or what's happening?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, I will say, like right now, visually and programming wise,
a lot of Boyfriend has like my DNA and the
other founder's DNA, and I hope in five years it
looks less like the four of us and more like
other workers. Like right now, we have seven workers or
(30:14):
employees that are all on like the pre ownership track,
and once they hit one year at the co op,
they're eligible to become owners. And throughout this year they're
basically like training to become owners. And I'm just really
excited to see me take a more like hands off
roll and to participate in a less hierarchical nature. Right
(30:38):
now we mirror some more traditional hierarchy just from like
a logistical standpoint. And we've been on the project for
three months and they've been on the project for seven weeks.
But the longer the business lives, the less that'll be
the case. And I'm just really excited to see the
touches and the DNA they imprint on the business, and
(31:00):
like the type of programming that evolves to meet their
needs and to represent their cultures and their communities, whether
that's reflected in like the drinks on the menu, or
the artwork on the walls, or the events that we're facilitating.
So that's the thing I'm most excited to see and
like to see the things I couldn't even like predict,
you know what I mean, the things that I didn't
(31:22):
think of because they exist outside of my consciousness.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, and because it's a truly community owned space.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah. Well, thanks for all that you're doing, and most importantly,
good luck with Dregman go tonight.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City show
about change makers and their stories together we can spread
good ideas from on to the next city. Thank you
for listening this week. Thank you to our guest Hannah Mustafa.
She's co founder and director of brand and Events at
Boyfriend co Op in Brooklyn. Thank you to Next City's
Senior Economic Justice correspondent Oscar Periobello for his reporting on
this story. Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show
(32:15):
producer is Maggie Bowles, our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson,
and I'm Lucas Gridley, Executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
nonprofit model. If you like what we're doing here, please
consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot
org slash membership to make a donation, and we'd love
to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free
to email us at info at nexcity dot org, and
(32:38):
if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify,
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Strawt media like I have the spaces where I could
be very queer, and sometimes I have the spaces where
I could be really air up.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But rarely are there places where I could be both.
And I'm really happy that so far our boyfriend is
able to feel like a safe space for multiple different
identity markers.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
This is Lucas Grindley from Next City. I show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems suppressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Back in the
nineteen eighties, there were more than two hundred lesbian bars
across the United States. By twenty twenty two, that number
(00:50):
had trunk to twenty one. But in today's episode, we'll
learn about one community driven effort to bring them back,
at least in Brooklyn, where we find the Boyfriend co Op.
It's queer coffee shop by day, cocktail bar by night.
It's also a worker owned cooperative designed to feel like
your queer living room. Boyfriend offers everything from drag bingo
to live streams with your neighborhood bartender, all shaped by
(01:13):
a team that operates collectively without the usual top down hierarchy.
We'll talk with Hannah Mustafa, one of Boyfriend's four co
founders and the brand and events director, about how a
long running joke between friends turned into a real plan.
It wasn't easy. They spent months working with a co
op focused lender to turn their concept into a fully
mapped out business, and we'll talk about why co ownership
(01:36):
isn't just part of the mission, it's the whole point. First,
let's check in with NEX City's senior Economic Justice correspondent
Oscar Periobello, who first covered this story in April. So
part of your beat Little Unusual is that you have
more than once covered this problem of lesbian bars disappearing
(01:56):
in most cities. Spaces for queer women are just vanishing.
So what's happening?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
There are multiple reasons. There are multiple factors that play here,
from just cycles of real estate, gentrification and development. You know,
back when there are a number of lesbian bars was
around two hundred. We were talking like in the eighties. Right,
Technology has also changed the preferred platforms ways spaces for
(02:25):
queer women have changed, have multiplied in a sense, but
they're sort of coming back around like, yes, we should
have these kinds of spaces too.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, we go from two hundred spaces in the eighties
to like twenty now and even fewer in New York
City around twenty.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Across the whole country, there's more today, and there's been
a kind of resurgence, which is part of what the
story is about.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
So the way it's researched, at least in this one story,
is that they've launched a co op that is part bar,
it's part work space, in part coffee shop. And you
say that the unconventional ownership structure, to the menu, to
the furniture, everything about Boyfriend co Op is an expression
(03:11):
of its co founders in their community. Why do you
say that?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
It's really just literally what they told me, you know,
when I asked them, why do you want to start
a business this way? It's much harder, it's more challenging.
There are as many lenders that work with cooperative especially
work around cooperatives. There's only so many classes, organizations people
that teach how to how to run a cooperative business.
So why do it this way? And in basically four
(03:39):
separate conversations within the span of several hours, all of
them said in different ways, and it was the only
way we wanted to start and run a business was
as a worker own cooperative, democratically owned and managed by
the workers.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
They just felt it was the right way to do it,
like that this was a representation who they are in
their values.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Was to share ownership, their ownership, share governance, you know,
not necessarily like day to day responsibilities. You know, you
sort of still split up like okay, what you know,
which coffees do we buy or which cocktails you create?
Just sort of still split up by by function, but
like you know, the larger business decisions, uh, you know,
(04:22):
wage levels and benefits and HR policies, all those sorts
of things that typically fall on the shoulders of one
person or maybe two people, and it happens behind closed doors,
but the workers not really having an input into those things.
They felt like they wanted to do this collectively, to
(04:45):
share those responsibilities. It's it's it's it's just a better
representation of their values as people, and especially when it
came down to like ownership structure and who profits when
this thing does well. Not wanting to have that typical
start sure of one entrepreneur or one owner at the
top reaping all the profits off of the backs of workers.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So the thing I'm wondering is is there any world
in which you could say that being a worker cooperative
makes them more resilient in some ways to all the
other things that you know led to the disappearance of
this space.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah. So, you know, a couple of months ago, we
also had Next City. I also published a story about
how there was this nonprofit in New York City that
couldn't find an executive director to fill the shoes in
the previous executive directors, And that was very much a
(05:43):
story about burnout because they couldn't find anybody who could
really take on that, who really wanted to take on
that burden and could take on that burden. I can
imagine how previous generations not being a work or cooperative
parts of how some of those spaces closed down own
where the owners just really deciding, you know, we don't
we don't want to do this any way, we want
(06:04):
to retire. And you know, for these for the founders
of Boyfriend co Op, it's co op, it's definitely a
sort of resiliency kind of strategy to share the burden
of running and operating a business among the group collectively.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, that's a good point, and it's something you see
across cooperatives all over like every sector. And one of
the things that struck me in your story was a
co founder saying they had learned about cooperatives from the
food justice movement and then just started thinking, well, I
wonder if this could work for you know, creating space
for queer women. And that's interesting that you can actually
(06:42):
take this model from one place to another.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Well, it's about the principles, right, the food just movement,
not necessarily building work our own cooperatives, but building food
co ops, you know, community owned, consumer own cooperatives, right
the parks of food co Op and other food co
ops across the country, these are consumer cooperatives, not necessarily
work on cooperatives, But it's the principles, right. So cooperatives
(07:08):
have these like seven principles that they all use around
the world. Some of them talk about it more, some
talk about it more than others. Some of it and
don't ask me to recall them all of them right now,
but well, you know one of them is co ops
helping co ops. So like some of the cooperatives, for instance,
they'll they'll you know, if they're a bar maybe they're
(07:29):
going to buy their bar tops, their countertops from a
worker owned stone and tile company, because there is one
of those in Brooklyn, It's called Brooklyn Stone Entile. So
co ops helping other co ops, right, that's just one
of the principles, and that's really what transfers from one
from one sector or one space to another. Are the
cooperative principles that drive cooperative businesses around the world, from
(07:54):
co ops from more, from consumer co ops to work
or co ops to financial cooperatives like credit union.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Boyfriend co op has lots in common with credit unions,
grocery stores, all these other places.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah, one thing we need to talk about in the
story is how the business got funded. So the working
world is the CDF islander that specializes in worker own cooperatives.
I'm learning this from your story and they are where
they went for this loan. So explain why was it
important that you needed someone who specialized and work her
own co.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
Opts From the barer side, if you want to be
a worker on cooperative, if you go see what conventional
credit union or bank, you're going to have to do
a lot of explaining about why your ownership structures this way,
what is a worker on cooperative? And you might get
(08:46):
a lot of funny looks, you might get a lot
of blankstairs, you might get some you know, some nice
polite smiles. But I don't think this is really for
us kinds of conversations because it is rare. You know,
there's maybe there's only a few hundred worker owned cooperatives
across the United States today. Not very many banks or
credit unions have experience working with them. Who do you have?
(09:09):
There are a few loan funds. CDFIs conclude loan funds
like the Working World that exists specifically to invest in
worker owned cooperatives, either new ones or converting conventional businesses
into worker owned cooperatives. So this is all they do.
(09:29):
So they understand that ownership piece of the business model,
and they also understand how to work with these kinds
of worker owned cooperatives to.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Get through a lot of the things that a normal
small business has to go through, all the underwriting, all
of the business planning, all the business modeling and projections.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
And this was also really important for a boyfriend co op.
They're repaying these loans, right, there's two things here of
the repayments, so the working world is structured so that
you only make a payment on the loan if your
business earns a profit in that month. Oh wow. It's
(10:12):
called the technical term for it is called royalty based financing.
The working world calls it non extractive financing. But in
this way, the repayments on the loan don't jeopardize the business.
You're only making a repayment if you make a profit
in that month. And then number two, when boyfriend co
ops starts to make those repayments, it really matters to
(10:34):
them that it's going back into a loan fund that's
going to continue to make investments and other work owned.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Cooperatives, cooperatives, helping cooperatives.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, cooperatively cooperatives. The Working World is also part of
a national network called seed Commons, which they're not called
the Working World in every city. Every city has a
different has a different organization. But in New York it's
called the Working World. In Baltimore it's called the Baltimore
round Table for Economic Democracy. In the Bay Area there's
Cooperation Richmond.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I didn't know that. I heard of seed comments. I
didn't realize it was different. Everywhere. That's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Yeah, So there are different members of this network called
seed commons, and the whole network invests in worker own
cooperatives all across the country. The more success boyfriend co
operate has, the more success the whole network of worker
cooperative loan funds has as collectively to whether we able
(11:29):
to invest in more worker o on cooperatives across the
country as a result.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, last thing I'll ask you is if if someone
goes to a boyfriend co op, any recommendations from the menu?
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Okay, so my recommendations off the menu. As a journalist,
I must I must always start by recommending what is
their version of the espresso martini. So it's called the
Monus forty. It's named after the first known openly lesbian
bar in San Francisco. And there's also the Delighted Dear Carmela,
(12:01):
which is I like it because it does I like
the grapefruits, blood, orange bits of it. It's a run
based cocktail. Carmela is the first lesbian vampire on screen.
She was also one of the first.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Lesbian vampires in literature, if I'm not mistaken. And then
so those are the cocktails who all recommend and then
of course on the beer side, they served like beer
a Friend co Op.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Yes, they do.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Teaser previous episode, previous episode, I love it. After the break,
co founder Hannah Mustapha joins us to talk about how
a long running joke between friends became Boyfriend co Op
and how they built the space rooted in identity, community
and shared ownership. Welcome back. Before the break, we were
(12:57):
talking about what it takes to launch a worker own
cooperative and why that model offers a different kind of resilience.
Now we're joined by someone living the story, Hannah Mustafa,
Brandon events director and one of the four co founders
of Boyfriend co Op in Brooklyn. So they say that
every joke has a hint of truth to it. So
(13:18):
tell us about this long running joke that you had
with you and your co founder. I guess that someday
you were going to start a lesbian co op.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Basically, my best friend and I from childhood. We've known
each other since we were twelve thirteen years old, and
once she, Mika, had started learning about cooperatives, we both
just like geeked out on it, her more than me
because she was immersed in that environment, but me via
her and our first adult trip together, we went backpacking
(13:50):
through Turkey and Greece, and that's sort of when the
joke formed of like, oh my god, we should totally
start a co op. It should be a lesbian co op.
And that's the long running joke. I think we were
like twenty and now Mika turned thirty the time we
(14:10):
started training our staff and I'm twenty nine, so almost
a decade long joke.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh my gosh. And so when did you realize that
it wasn't a joke.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think it was a different joke that made us
believe it. But we were at a friend's birthday three
years ago, three and a half years ago at this point,
and she was a lesbian, as were the majority of
her friends, and we were all kind of just talking
about how we wish there were more lesbian bar options,
(14:44):
or like, oh it takes me two trains to get
to a lesbian bar, or it takes me forty five minutes,
or I don't want to go into Manhattan, or you
know whatever the insert complaint here was. And I said,
don't worry you, guys, Mika and I are opening a
lesbian bar. Everyone got so excited. It was like twenty
five hungry lesbians, like eager to go to this fictitious
(15:07):
place I mentioned, And I was like, oh, no, no,
we're just joking. That was not real, and everyone was like,
oh damn, you know, I wish it was. So the
next day Mika and I had a conversation and we're like,
that would be crazy, right, but we're crazy. So you
did it, and that was the day it became real.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
You've already geeked out about co ops, so there's some
knowledge there for sure. How did you get in touch
with the working world which is specializing in co ops
and were you at all worried that they would get
it the idea for a boyfriend.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Well, Mika was already familiar with the working world. She
doesn't claim this for herself, but I call her the
co op Queen of New York City. But she's just
like really immersed in the cooperative scene in New York
and Northeast in general, And so she had been really
tapped in and was familiar with the working world. She
worked at start Dot co Op, so she knew a
(16:09):
lot about like cooperative initiatives in New York City and
like co op development and people who were transitioning their
existing businesses into co ops or starting their own co
ops from scratch. So she was like very familiar with
them and knew immediately that they would be like values
aligned with us.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
What was their reaction when you pitched it.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I don't think they had like a wild reaction one
way or the other. They were just like, oh, yeah,
that's so clever, and we do need more lesbian bars
in New York City, and this is a great idea.
You just need a lot of development on your business plan.
And we worked with them for like six months at least,
but by the time we got approval, so we were
(16:51):
like pre approved and they have this like get them
to the yes model where it's like not yet, not yet,
not yet yes. So we worked together for a while
time before we got our loan approved.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
What does that mean? Work together for people who might
be thinking about doing this? Would they have in store?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So they would look at our business proposal, our business
model and be like, Okay, adapt this, adjust this, condense this,
work with a lawyer on this. And then they really
helped us develop our financial projections and like a very
specific breakdown of how much funds we needed and exactly
what the funds would be used for. So they would
(17:31):
give us these little like homework assignments of like find
a list of twelve businesses that share at least two
of your business models, like boyfriend is the first queer
coffee cocktail cooperative, so there wasn't really another business to
model after. But we could find like queer co ops
or queer coffee shops or queer cocktail bars or cooperative
(17:53):
coffee shop or cooperative cocktail bar. So we would find
places that hit two out of the four business models
in New York City, ideally like in Brooklyn or off
a similar train line, and we would go in for
like sometimes six hour chunks and just count how many
people would walk through the door, or like the average
(18:15):
number of drinks purchased per person. And we would do
this like on a peak hours, on slow hours on weekends,
on weekdays, and also chat with business owners and ask
them questions. And these were sort of like the prompts
given to us by the working world to help us
input data for our pro forma to make educated guesses
(18:39):
about when we would break even, when we would turn
a profit if we got this loan, how long it
would take us to pay it back things like that.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
That's great because it really puts you in a much
better place than maybe it would have been had you
been doing a for profit model. I don't know that
you get that kind of support. I'm told that wanting
to be a co op was partly in response to
your experience and experiences of your co founders, you know,
working in other places. How did that play out?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, I think for so many of us, like we
would not have opened a cafe bar if it wasn't
a co op. Like the co op was so foundational
to the vision. Mica had always known that she was
going to or always wanted to open a co op
one day. She didn't know what would be with me,
or that would be a lesbian cafe bar, but it
(19:30):
was like, you know, if I ever started business, it
would have to be a co op, Like that's you know,
my my it would match up with my principles. And
I think the thing that drew in so many people
to the project was the like worker owned aspect of it.
And I think the service industry, especially at such a
high turnover rate and so much like dissatisfaction in the workplace,
(19:54):
and so to be able to give people more autonomy,
more financial literacy, more trans Farncy is like the only
way we would have felt comfortable having a business.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
After the break, Hannah shares her advice for anyone thinking
about starting a space like this. She also talks about
what it means to build something collectively and why she
is most excited for Boyfriend to grow beyond the founding team.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
We love the queer spaces that exists, but there's just
really not that many in the center women and non
binary folks, trans folks, and there are really not many
of their own by people of color support to us, and.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So we were like, there should be more in the city.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Are we crazy enough to do it? Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Welcome back. That's the voice of Mika Fisher, Hannah's longtime
friend and one of the four co founders of Boyfriend
co Op. This was recorded during an in person visit
to the space.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
And I have been working with cooperatives for years now
and that is.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
At the center of this business model.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
We always nay, we wanted to do a cooperative and
it's really important to us to provide ownership opportunities for
the people that are putting in the labor to make
a space work.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
When I spoke with Hannah. She was in the back
room at Boyfriend co Op getting ready for the Memorial
Day weekend. The bar was still very new, and of
course they had some fun plans on the calendar.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Well, tonight we have a drag queen coming to host
a queer bingo. It's called Not Your Boyfriend's Bingo, And
basically we're entering our seventh week of open But my plan,
as like the events coordinator, is the first three weeks
of events programming to be as like experimental as possible
(21:47):
to see what the community resonates with. And I'm just
kind of saying yes to anyone who wants to host something.
So we're testing to see, you know, which drug artists
people really like, or which type of events people really
respond to, or what kind of yeah things bring in crowds.
(22:08):
So this will be our first being go night, and
I'm excited to see how that goes. But also because
it's a co op, we're trying to give our workers
as much like agency and autonomy over how they contribute
to the business's growth. So another thing that's happening tonight
is one of our bartenders, Emily, pitched an idea for
(22:29):
like a behind the scenes with the Boyfriend bartender. So
she's gonna log into our Instagram and do an Instagram
live and like livestream cocktail making, and so that'll be
happening too, which I'm excited about. I get really excited
anytime a worker pitches an idea and executes it. So
(22:50):
excited to see what that does to our online presence
and how it translates to people coming in.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, I feel like seeing that on the boyfriend install
would feel very real in a different way than maybe
at a different bar. I don't know, like it might
be one of those things that I was wondering about,
where would anyone know that this is a co op? Right,
Like if they went in the doors and they were
looking around, would anything really be different? And it's maybe
(23:16):
it's those small things that are different that people might notice.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I think not a lot of people know what
a co op is, and even the people who do
will like often associate it with like food cooperatives or
grocery cooperatives, or even like producer co ops or housing
co ops. So I think like service industry cooperatives in
the US especially are like very foreign to the average person.
(23:43):
They were very foreign to me if it wasn't for Meca,
And I think like we want to be able to
engage our clientele in that I think we're really like
visually identifiably like a leftist space based off of like
the RT we have and the Palestine flags throughout, and
like just like our bulletin board and the type of
(24:07):
content that's on it. We have like a stack of
war crimes newspapers. So it's like we're identifiably left But
I don't know if we're identifiably a co op. And
that's something that we're definitely like trying to push at
every angle because one thing that's really important to our
ethos is like encouraging cooperative business. We really hope Boyfriend
(24:30):
becomes a model for other people to start their own
co ops. So yeah, it's definitely something that we're attempting
and that we want to put more effort and energy
into as well.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I know you're only a couple months in at this point,
but you must have had maybe a few reservations about
one just starting your own business or maybe it being
a work or co op. How have those played out
in reality?
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know, to be completely honest, I did not have thosetions.
I think I was just so delusional and naive that
I was like, this is just a great idea. It's
going to be super smooth and perfect. I mean not
to that extent obviously, but I think, like it hit
me later how crazy it was. Like I knew it
(25:19):
was crazy the whole time, but I was like, I
think when Week and I started it, we had anticipated
that we could have done it in like a year.
It took us three years. But we were really humbled
every step of the way, like New York City real
estate construction, the employment process, opening, staying a float, like
(25:39):
every step has had its own unexpected bumps or challenges.
But never did I question the decision. There were maybe
a few times, like in the real estate process, where
I'm like, if we don't find a space by the
end of the year, maybe it's time to move on.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
But we did.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
We found a space, and we stuck with it and
now open and it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You have any guidance for someone who might be listening,
who maybe they want to start a third space, I'd
call this a third space. Any guidance on like persisting
through all.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
That, Yeah, I would say, like you need to be
a little bit delusional to do something like this, and
you need to have business partners that you trust, Like
we were so lucky with the partners that we found,
Like Mika and I have known each other half our lives,
but the two people that we partnered with, Nat and
Casey were people we didn't know before this process started,
(26:46):
and they were so pivotal to bring this vision to life.
And like, finding people who share your values and your
ethics and your dedication to the project are so important.
And I mean, we made this joke about when we
interview people, we have to ask them how crazy they are,
(27:06):
because if they're not crazy enough, they can't handle it.
And I think it has a grain of truth to
that as well. But you just have to keep going
and know that every obstacle is temporary, in the obstacle
that comes next is probably bigger, but will seem smaller
down the line.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I love earlier that you described it as a like
a clearly leftist space, right and it's a political space.
There's a lot is happening there. It is a bar,
slush coffee shop and other things going on. But I
feel like in the history of queer spaces, there's always
been access to activism and like movement work and things
(27:49):
like that, And I don't know if that's intentional on
your part to kind of honor that history or it
just feels natural anyway.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Probably a little bit of both. But I also do
think like there there was a lot of purposeful intersectionality
in the creation of Boyfriend. There are not many queer
spaces run by people of color. A lot of like
the queer scene is dominated by white people or sis people,
(28:18):
and doing something different felt necessary, As like a Palestinian lesbian.
There have definitely been like radical queer spaces that I've
assumed I would feel comfortable at and hadn't. And there's
also a lot of like Zionists in big roles in
(28:40):
the queer scene, so like to create an anti Zionist
space was really special and really healing for me. I
think sometimes like I have the spaces where I could
be very queer and not sometimes I have the spaces
where I could be really Arab, but rarely are there
places where I could be both. And being able to
build that and being able to see like other queer
(29:03):
Swana people feel like safe and seen in this space
has been really special, and I know that there's like
a lot of other people on our team with different
identity markers that have felt the same, like prioritizing like
intergenerational clientele or prioritizing trans clientele. They are things that
(29:24):
you would assume have more outlets, but still feel so
like precious. And I'm really happy that so far Boyfriend
is able to you know, feel like a safe space
for multiple different identity markers.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
I love that, and you're right so far, But let's
think five years into the future. I don't know, what
do you hope when you walk in the door a
boyfriend it feels like they're or what's happening?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, I will say, like right now, visually and programming wise,
a lot of Boyfriend has like my DNA and the
other founder's DNA, and I hope in five years it
looks less like the four of us and more like
other workers. Like right now, we have seven workers or
(30:14):
employees that are all on like the pre ownership track,
and once they hit one year at the co op,
they're eligible to become owners. And throughout this year they're
basically like training to become owners. And I'm just really
excited to see me take a more like hands off
roll and to participate in a less hierarchical nature. Right
(30:38):
now we mirror some more traditional hierarchy just from like
a logistical standpoint. And we've been on the project for
three months and they've been on the project for seven weeks.
But the longer the business lives, the less that'll be
the case. And I'm just really excited to see the
touches and the DNA they imprint on the business, and
(31:00):
like the type of programming that evolves to meet their
needs and to represent their cultures and their communities, whether
that's reflected in like the drinks on the menu, or
the artwork on the walls, or the events that we're facilitating.
So that's the thing I'm most excited to see and
like to see the things I couldn't even like predict,
you know what I mean, the things that I didn't
(31:22):
think of because they exist outside of my consciousness.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, and because it's a truly community owned space.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah. Well, thanks for all that you're doing, and most importantly,
good luck with Dregman go tonight.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Next City show
about change makers and their stories together we can spread
good ideas from on to the next city. Thank you
for listening this week. Thank you to our guest Hannah Mustafa.
She's co founder and director of brand and Events at
Boyfriend co Op in Brooklyn. Thank you to Next City's
Senior Economic Justice correspondent Oscar Periobello for his reporting on
this story. Our audio producer is Silvana Alcala, Our show
(32:15):
producer is Maggie Bowles, our executive producer is Ryan Tillotson,
and I'm Lucas Gridley, Executive director for Next City. By
the way, Next City is a news organization with a
nonprofit model. If you like what we're doing here, please
consider pitching in to support our work. Visit nexcity dot
org slash membership to make a donation, and we'd love
to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free
to email us at info at nexcity dot org, and
(32:38):
if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify,
good Pods, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
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