After a successful inaugural event last year in Seattle, Womxn In Coffee is taking a three-hour road trip down I-5 to Portland. Taking place Friday, February 15th at Black Rabbit Service Co., Womxn In Coffee will feature candid conversations about the hardships faced by underrepresented members of the coffee community and ways to address these issues head-on.
Using the first Womxn In Coffee as an outline, event creator Tatiana Benitez will use a panel format to give a voice to firsthand experiences of injustice faced by members of the (mostly) Portland-based coffee community, not just women but people of color, queer, and non-binary individuals as well. For the panel, Benitez has enlisted the help of #CoffeeToo co-founder and coffee professional at Seattle’s Broadcast Coffee Molly Flynn, a return guest from the first Womxn In Coffee. The panel will also include local professionals Sara Reynolds of Good Coffee, Alejandria Acereto of Stumptown, Paxton Ogwaro of Never Coffee, and Camila Coddou, the former Ristretto Roasters barista who made news for taking a stand against #MeNeither, a YouTube channel created in part by Nancy Rommelmann, the wife of Ristretto owner Din Johnson.
The goal of the event, according to Benitez, is to “raise awareness about these injustices and to start the conversation” as well as “[discuss], along with the audience, solutions, and ideas that we may all have on how to stop this from happening within their cafes.”
Food and drink—both alcoholic and non—will be provided on a first come first served basis. The event is completely free and open to the public. It all gets started at 6:30pm at Black Rabbit Service Co in northeast Portland. For more information and to review the code of conduct, visit the Womxn In Coffee Facebook event page.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
Top image via Womxn In Coffee, designed by Chris Hulsizer.
