In September 2013, Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse, the Baltimore, Md., worker-owned and collectively managed bookstore, is moving from the Mount Vernon neighborhood to Station North in the North Av
enue Market, where it will have five times as much space as it does now.
The store said the new location will allow it to stock more books, hold more events, have classroom and meeting rooms space and more tables and couches, and, thanks to a complete kitchen, offer "a full vegan/vegetarian menu, including dinner-options featuring locally-sourced produce and dairy" as well as "transparently-traded coffee roasted onsite." The store hopes that the new space will create economies of scale to pay staff, most of whom work on a volunteer basis, a living wage. "When we opened eight years ago, we knew a lot about books and politics, but very little about running a real collective business," the store said. "Today, we're ready to rebuild our project on a much more long-term sustainable economic basis."
Red Emma's estimates the cost of the move, new equipment, renovations and fees at $250,000 and is launching an indiegogo.com campaign to raise at least $50,000. ("We'll finance what we can out of pocket and with loans, but the less we have to work with big banks the better!") Rewards range from a cup of coffee for a $10 donation and a sticker and button for $25 to free coffee for five years for $5,000 to free coffee for life for $10,000.
