The upcoming August edition of San Francisco Magazine offers an interesting long read on Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters co-founder and outspoken coffee Twitterer Nick Cho (and features the above incredible photograph). Choโ€”a specialty coffee industry veteran whose social media presence is the spicy stuff of legendโ€”pulls no punches in this well-rounded portrait from reporter Luke Tsai.ย Comparing cold brew to โ€œgetting kicked in the balls?โ€ Check. โ€œUltra-light-roasted beansโ€ akin to toxic masculinity? You betcha. The whole thing is strongly worth your reading time. In a world where mainstream coffee reporting still veers perilously close to the “duh duh” variety, Tsai’s feature stands out. We think it’s an early frontrunner for a 2017 Sprudgie Award nomination for coffee writing.

And within the article there’s a bit of news: Wrecking Ball Coffee, which Cho co-owns with partner Trish Rothgeb, are working on a new project in San Franciscoโ€™s Mission District. It’s going in to the Redlick Building, on the corner of Mission and 17th. With โ€œthe neighborhoodโ€™s already rampant gentrification,โ€ this was a part of town Cho never planned on opening a coffee shop. But when the opportunity arose to do so with the landlord covering โ€œall of the build-out expenses,โ€ it was too good to pass up.

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The cafe project is still in early stages, as per the article, but Cho and Rothgeb are theming it around a thought-provoking hook: this is to be an โ€œanti-gentrification cafe.โ€ Here’s more from the article:

Cho thought about it some more and decided maybe the best thing to do would be to embrace his discomfort and channel it into something positive. What if he opened a cafรฉ that was structured in such a way that it would not further gentrify the surrounding stretch of Mission Street, instead actuallyย providing something to benefit the Spanish-speaking and low-income people who live and work nearby? What would such a coffee shop look like?

The answer, at least in part, includes bi-lingual menus and staff, street-level menus, using Latino-owned Mission-based bakeries, offering โ€œa few playful drinks that might appeal to Latino customers,โ€ removing pour-overs from the menu (due to price point and fussiness), and bringing prices down in general by using โ€œa different selection of coffee beans, or a slightly less expensive brand of milk.โ€ According to the article, Cho โ€œplans to give an ownership stake to one of Wrecking Ballโ€™s longtime employees, a bilingual Latino, and have him helpย run the cafeโ€”not because he needs a โ€˜Latino beardโ€™โ€ฆ but because he feels like the guy would make the most of the opportunity.โ€

News of the new shop has drawn both praise and criticism from the Missionโ€™s anti-gentrification camp, which is probably to be expected, and Tsai solicits community feedback as an integral part of the feature. The issue itself is a difficult one, but the article does a wonderful job of presenting the storyโ€”and Choโ€™s bold/complicated AF conceptโ€”in a balanced manner.

Perhaps the takeaway from this entire grand experiment wonโ€™t be the success or failure of it all, but it will be in the attempt to do something about this growing issue. Or as Cho states, โ€œWeโ€™re not going to fix gentrification with one cafรฉ. But weโ€™re not going to fix gentrification if no one tries to do anything a little differently.โ€

Go read the article.ย 

Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.

*top image via San Francisco Magazine

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