NYC's Mercantile Mayhem: Coffee Flights, FTC Chair Lina Khan Con't, Furry Fiends, Street Vendor Stats and Malai Ice Cream
A newsletter about the survival of independent businesses in New York City with a focus on immigrant-owned, storefront retail and CPG enterprises.
NEW SIPPING SPOT ALERT FOR HARDCORE COFFEE LOVERS
It’s still under construction but in several weeks Driftaway Coffee in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will open an area of their roasting HQ for coffee lovers to sip coffee. We are talking coffee flights level of coffee lovers who taste notes of cherry blossoms at dawn or moonlit mulberries and such. The more casual coffee drinkers who just need a delicious caffeinated coffee beverage will have their needs met too, Driftaway Coffee will have regular cups of brewed coffee to sip in-house or to go. This new development could be especially handy for concert goers needing to get jacked up for a show at Brooklyn Steel, which is right across the street.
The new space will occupy a corner of Driftaway Coffee’s HQ, where they roast and package their coffee beans for customers, which will also be used for presentations, talks and events that they already host (in a different corner). I have attended a couple of these coffee presentations with guest speakers like Abhinav Khanal, co-founder of Bean Voyage, which supports small, female-owned coffee farms in Latin America, and most recently, Juan Medina, a specialty coffee farmer/producer/exporter from Colombia, the CEO of The Coffee Five Project.
Cofounded by Anu Menon and Suyog Mody, Driftaway Coffee specializes in equitably sourced coffee beans from small farms around the globe. They primarily sell their beans through a personalized subscription, it’s also sold in retails shops like The Goods Mart.
The new Driftaway Coffee space will be open only on the weekends initially, check in with the their website and Instagram for updates.
FTC CHAIR LINA KHAN ON 60 MINUTES
Now I know why journalist Lesley Stahl was at a Bronx event a week and a half ago (I wrote about it here) with FTC Chair Lina Khan and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Stahl was reporting on Khan for a 60 Minutes segment that aired this past Sunday, September 22, I encourage you to watch it here.
The Federal Trade Commission’s role is to protect the consumer and help create the environment for entrepreneurship to thrive, which can’t happen when there are mergers and acquisitions galore, creating monopolies or oligopolies.
In the 60 Minutes story Stahl asks about an asthma inhaler that costs $7 in France and around $500 in the US, due to special “patents”. I was shocked to learn that one patent in question was for a little piece of plastic connecting the inhaler to the cap, not the formulation of the medication itself. After receiving letters from the FTC, several US drug companies dropped their asthma inhaler prices to $35.
Another sector covered in the segment is supermarkets and why grocery prices remain high, as most of the pandemic-caused supply chain issues have been resolved. I think this is a complicated sector, many supermarkets are not surviving and shuttering locations; Shoprite closed 60 New York locations.
I am not sure how supermarkets can thrive without raising prices (or charging producers higher shelving fees or for in-store ads, both of which can crush small independent CPG brands) but one place to start might be executives’ salaries. The CEO of Kroger Rodney McMullen, for example, made 502 times the median amount of Kroger employees in 2023 and that was with an 18% pay cut from the year prior. In 2022 McMullen earned $19.2 million that included $10.4 million in stock awards and a $4.1 million bonus. I mean, what does one person even do with all that money?
DOES “SIDEWALK PSYCHO” DESCRIBE YOUR FURRY FIEND?
If so, School For The Dogs in the East Village might be able to help. This warm, supportive storefront center owned by Annie Grossman, initially opened in 2011 and is now operating as a collective. They offer individual and group classes for both dogs and humans, as well as an enormous amount of webinars, podcasts, blogposts that help humans and dogs alike. Grossman just published How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science in early September, which highlights some of her dog training philosophies and techniques.
You might have heard her interviewed on WNYC’s All Of It with Allison Stewart, which is a fascinating synopsis of Grossman’s path juggling journalism (we used to work at the New York Observer together!) dog training, small business owner, author, with a few other roles thrown in for good measure.
The writing shines in How to Train Your Dog with Love and Science. It doesn’t read like doggie-centric platitudes or only science information lacking soul. I highly recommend the book, obviously if you own a dog, unruly or not, but even if you don’t own a dog at the moment and might be entertaining the thought.
BIG TECH AND OUR UTILITIES
This Linkedin post by Paul Joo Yon Kim, founder of know.capital and professor about town, is about Big Tech and utilities, yes, as in, electricity. I confess, I don’t understand every graph and/or argument in the post, but it’s thought provoking and highlights some of the lopsided transfer of power and money with the evolution of Big Tech, including AI, impacting independent entities. Read it here.
STREET VENDOR STATS
A comprehensive superb report about New York City’s street vendors was issued last week by Immigrant Research Initiative, you can find it here. I am so impressed with this report, which highlights nearly every aspect of today’s vendors: gender, race, age, country of origin, language spoken, earnings, if they have a permit or license, how long they’ve been vending, what they sell, if vending is their primary source of income, why they became a vendor and if they enjoy it.
A tiny sampling of stats from the report: an estimated 20,500 mobile food vendors (who might sell corn dogs, halal chicken, fresh fruit, anything edible) work on the city streets, there are 2,400 general merchandise vendors who might sell t-shirts, sunglasses or touristy trinkets. A whopping 96 percent of street vendors are immigrants, 46 percent speak at least two languages, 30 percent are from Mexico, 7 percent are from Senegal, 96 percent of street vendors say vending is their primary source of income; mobile food vendors might have profits of $250 to $1,000 a week.
Some of the more alarming statistics include: 63 percent of vendors lack access to a restroom, 75 percent of mobile food vendors do not have permits (the cap had been at 3,000, now 6,000, the waiting list has 9,878 names). The cap on general vendor licenses for non-veterans is 853, the waiting list has 10,992 names and has been closed since 2016. The cap on permits and licenses has created a robust black market, some “lease” their permits or licenses for thousands of dollars when the actual cost is $200.
Yet, despite street vending hardships, there is something to be said for being your own boss. Ninety five percent surveyed said they love being a vendor.
MADAM VICE PRESIDENT ICE CREAM
Last week Malai Ice Cream, founded by Pooja Bavishi, gave out free scoops of their special Madam Vice President flavor of coconut mango with jaggery candied lotus seeds. Ice cream fans visited Malai, including New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes, who is a hardcore ice cream appreciator!
It was part of a MoveOn initiative called Scoop The Vote that visits various spots (sometimes partnering with ice cream shops) with an ice cream truck giving out free scoops throughout the US. The only catch is that they ask for names and emails, you may receive emails and texts until death, maybe even into the afterlife.
Upcoming visits include cities like Ann Arbor and Madison, in the midwest, and southwestern cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas. One of the flavors MoveOn serves from the truck is “Unburdened by What has Vanilla Bean”, which I think is hilarious.
ELIZABETH STREET GARDEN II
I touched on the Elizabeth Street Garden last week and planned to write a more comprehensive article this week. However, due to the enormous amount of legal research and digging and my nutty schedule (I do have to make a living) I am just posting a few photos and tidbits.
The basic battle is this: the gorgeous, magical Elizabeth Street Garden, which is a much needed green space for the neighborhood, could be demolished for 123 units of “affordable housing” for the elderly that would include retail and office spaces. It’s a development called Haven Green. I put quotes around the term because I am skeptical of affordability unless square footage and dollar amounts are stated. The only city official I’ve ever known to be forthright about affordable housing numbers—square footage, salary requirements and monthly rents—is attorney Leah Goodridge, her Twitter is full of timely NYC housing news.
Not only do the birds and bees need this green space, as do humans, dogs and cats (yes, people walk their cats there, on leashes of course, like the handsome Ghosty) but it’s also needed for rain fall and cooling. During June and July’s heatwave, tree shade was invaluable. As I reviewed my photos, an astonishing number of people are reading books, as in paperbound books! This garden clearly encourages mind expansion. There are locations to build 123 units of housing for the elderly in the CB2 district other than one of the only green spaces in the neighborhood. Plus, in 60 years all the units could jump to market rate housing. Imagine destroying this gorgeous, serene garden for what could be luxury housing.
This project is slated to be a 50/50 public/private partnership, Pennrose is the for-profit half, NYC Habitat for Humanity, which does not exactly have the most stellar reputation in NYC, is one of the organizations in the nonprofit half, as is RiseBoro.
[Editorial update: after sending out the newsletter I made two corrections. It sounded like Ghosty the cat would get destroyed with the garden, he will not. And the other, Elizabeth Street Garden is not the only green space in Community Board 2’s area, but it is the only green space in the neighborhood.]
MERCANTILE MAYHEM NEWSLETTER SPONSORSHIP
Will the city become full of Sweetgreens, Chipotles and bank ATM locations? If you care about independent businesses, I am still looking for two (maybe just one, keeping fingers and toes crossed) additional sponsors—individuals, businesses, organizations or foundations—who believe in the survival of independent businesses. Sponsors, like the extraordinary Accompany Capital have a footer that is viewed by all sorts of brilliant people on the mailing list. If you would like to know sponsorship rates and newsletter stats (open rates and such) please email me: ninarobertsnyc@gmail.com and I’ll send you the details. Please forward this newsletter to others.
A gazillion thanks to Mercantile Mayhem’s sponsor Accompany Capital, which helps immigrants and refugees with loans and financial services. Read about Accompany Capital here.
OPPORTUNITIES
Food Future Co is a scale-up food accelerator and applications are open for Cohort 13. Food Future Co’s primary interests are: consumer products, local food, plant-based food, sustainable seafood, ag tech, food tech and food waste. Click here for details, deadline is October 28, 2024. There is even a free webinar tomorrow, September 26, with Managing Director Andy Simon and the current cohort of founders who will talk about the program.
Applications are open for the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans that pays for one to two years of graduate study. It’s open to immigrants or children of immigrants. Deadline: October 31, 2024.
Immigrant founders, find your people and network through the Unshackled Ventures community. Unshackled Ventures is VC fund based out of the Bay Area cofounded by Manan Mehta and Nitin Pachisia, apply here.
Love this! Thanks so much for the mention, Nina!