Roaster hasn’t filled promise of ownership
Four Barrel employees wait after harassment suit
The line at San Francisco’s Four Barrel Coffee threatens to spill onto Valencia Street on most mornings. The same goes for its sister cafe, the Mill on Divisadero, which is equally bustling as people flock to buy the cafe’s espresso and $8 avocado toast.
The apparent normalcy at the Four Barrel outposts comes eight months after an explosive sexual harassment lawsuit forced the divestment of the coffee company’s founder, Jeremy Tooker, and spurred a vow from its remaining owners, Tal Mor and Jodi Geren, to make the specialty roaster employee-owned. The lawsuit was settled a week after it was filed for an undisclosed amount of money. But seven months after it was made, the promise to shift ownership to employees remains unfulfilled.
In the wake of the scandal, Four Barrel’s pledge to change ownership was viewed by many as a way to make reparations, and perhaps, too, a measure to retain customers. Yet neither of the two remaining owners plans to divest from the company in the foreseeable future, they said earlier this month, though they say they are not ruling out the possibility further down the line.
Former employees are not convinced that the company’s management has adequately addressed its past.
“I feel like people have the impression that the harm that was caused there has been
fixed or taken care of,” said Umeko Motoyoshi, who worked for the company from 2013 to 2015 and was one of the eight women named in the sexual-harassment lawsuit. “That’s just not the truth.”
During the fallout of the January lawsuit, Four Barrel’s profits drastically declined while debts mounted, according to the company. Cafes and restaurants that previously did business with Four Barrel rushed to distance themselves from the disgraced roaster. By February, Mor said the company had lost 50 percent of its wholesale business. Due to the decline, Mor and Geren laid off seven employees.
In recent months, the company turned a corner, financially, according to Mor. Four Barrel’s three cafes in San Francisco are now operating “very close to where they were in previous years,” and their once-robust wholesale business has been quietly recovering, according to Mor.
Despite the increase, Mor said the company accumulated too much debt earlier this year to become employee-owned. Furthermore, he said that because both he and Geren had invested their own resources to “keep the company alive” over the past few months, they do not currently plan to divest from Four Barrel. He said the change remains a possibility in the future.
“While we’d initially planned to transition into an employee-owned co-op, the financial reality of our business hasn’t allowed for that,” he said. “It would be unfair to hand off the substantial debt liability we’ve incurred since January to our employees.”
Geren and Mor said if Four Barrel becomes profitable in 2018, they will share profits with employees who have worked for the company the entire year. The company currently has 45 employees.
Emily Haddad, a former employee who, according to the lawsuit, was once reprimanded for speaking out about the company’s offensive merchandise, said that Four Barrel hasn’t earned the right to go back to business as normal, or fall back on promises.
“They want the public to forget about the lawsuit and forget about their actions. I refuse to let that happen,” she said.
The practice of divesting is not uncommon, said San Francisco real estate attorney Martin Orlick, although rarely is selling a business — especially one saddled with debt — ever simple.
“You have to take into consideration the leases, the equipment, the debt, whether there is any litigation against the company,” Orlick said. “An attractive exit strategy can become unattractive if the employees are saddled with the debt.”
In Oakland, Charlie Hallowell has reportedly made deals to sell two of his three Oakland restaurants after more than 30 former employees accused him of sexual harassment. New York restaurateur Ken Friedman, who was also accused of sexual misconduct, split his nationwide empire with former partner April Bloomfield, who now runs North Beach’s Tosca Cafe on her own. Meanwhile, Mario Batali reportedly remains a partner in his empire, despite promises to the contrary.
Mor and Geren said they’ve focused on rebuilding the company’s culture since the lawsuit. The entire staff, they said, has completed harassment training, along with trainings on inclusivity and bias.
They said leadership positions have increased. Now, 30 percent of the overall workforce are in such positions, and 50 percent of the posts are filled by women.
An outside consultant has also been brought on to carry out leadership training that allows for improvement in employee decision-making and feedback.
“We understand the importance of empowering every employee and shifting the balance of power in our business away from the top,” Mor and Geren said in a joint statement. “We take responsibility for not having given our managers the proper training and tools to be proactive problem solvers, to create a healthy work environment, and to support all employees.”
For past employees however, like Motoyoshi, the coffee company has underperformed when it comes to addressing its past. Even current efforts fall short. Increasing the leadership roles and hiring consultants is, she said, like “putting lipstick on a pig.” Former workers believe that Mor and Geren have been less than forthcoming with workers, pointing out that, between January and March, the company’s online blog became the primary platform through which Mor and Geren discussed Four Barrel’s future. The last blog entry to directly reference the lawsuit and how the company was transitioning was posted Jan. 29.
Meanwhile, Haddad said she still wants Geren and Mor to formally divest from the company, financial woes or not.
“I want Jodi and Tal to also publicly acknowledge their part in all of it,” she said. “I want Jodi and Tal to divest from the company completely and for Four Barrel to become employee-owned, like they promised.”