A social enterprise does work to benefit the social circles with which it interacts.
At the centre of all business decisions, we can ask ourselves, “How does this help the community?” That is the nature of a social enterprise.
At Dreams of Beans, we recognize how we’re positioned to help our neighbourhood in so many ways. We’re doing things today to help, and plan to do more later when we can.
What we’re currently doing:
- Paying all labourers a living wage for all portions of their work
- Cancel tipping, saving patrons money to spend on necessities and ensuring that employees are paid for their service
- “Pay it forward”; if you really want to leave extra, we’ll help someone buy food and drink who otherwise couldn’t
- All art displayed and sold is done so with 0%, $0 commission to the cafe. We won’t profit from someone else’s work. All proceeds go directly to the artists.
- Inclusive policies make our cafe a safe space for many marginalized and targeted people groups.
- Facilitating non-cafe sales to help fund charities.
- Community-initiated events run for and by community. People ask us to host great events and we just run with it!
What we’d like to do in the future:
- Co-op ownership model of all employees
- Kitchen and service training for hireability and resume building
The cafe has been under this ownership since May 2023, and there is so much work to do still!