Help keep the Bipartisan Cafe open
Donation protected
Bipartisan Café is asking for your support to keep our doors open. Your donation will help us bridge these cold weather months where business is traditionally slow but without the buffer of a thriving 2020. We are hoping to raise $30,000. Your support will help us ensure that we can pay our employees for the hours they work, work with our landlord to pay past due rent, pay off the window we had installed, and prevent us from falling off of a financial cliff.
Like many of you, the Bipartisan Café began 2020 with high hopes. We were on track to pay off debt by the end of 2020 and we had plans to replace our 15 year old espresso machine. It’s been a good machine but it’s beginning to nickel and dime us to death. We had our eye on a new Magic Chef oven which would make our sandwiches come out faster, hotter, and allow us to expand our food offerings. Instead of realizing that hope, we closed for 6 weeks and incurred more debt. Instead of adding new equipment, we had to install a takeout window and absorb multiple COVID related expenses. We’ve had to reduce staffing and watch our livelihoods diminish.
We have done many things to try to adapt to COVID and our changing economy. We applied for, and received, PPP and we worked with our landlord who was very patient and gracious while we redesigned our service model. We put in a walk up window and added online ordering which allowed our staff to feel safe coming to work and created no-contact pick up. We adjusted our menu as we are unable to keep as much perishable food when sales are slower. We adjusted staff schedules, changed our business hours, and took inventory of our most popular items. I finally applied for a small business loan through US Bank (where my business account has been in good standing for 15 years) but was denied because our account balance remains so low. As a business owner, you compete for your customers. You know that your product, your business model and your values can make or break you. If this was a defeat based on our poor performance, I could much more easily walk away. Instead, this is a failure of our leadership to support our local economies and vulnerable small businesses.
Our community has been very good to us. Between Thanksgiving week and New Year’s, you all were amazing. But now we have hit the after the holidays doldrums. It is not fair that the community is tasked with keeping all of their favorite places afloat. Asking for more help feels horrible. But as it stands, we feel particularly vulnerable looking at the next 8 weeks, the slowest time of the year between holidays and spring break.
We thank you for all of the love and support over the years, especially the last 10 months. We know this is a big ask. We know that every restaurant and bar in this neighborhood, and this town, are also on your minds. They all deserve it. We need all of them and have lost too many great places already.
I would like to thank my business partner, Hobie, for her flexibility, resilience, creativity, and strength through the last 10 months. I’d like to thank my children for stepping up, adjusting, leading, and innovating to keep this business going. I would like to thank my employees who have stuck with us through the many drastic changes and hard times, and thank the employees who have been with us over the years or who were not able to continue with us through the pandemic. I’d also like to thank our neighborhood. We’ve been lucky to have so many great businesses move into the area. We have loved being a meeting place, a place for politics and politicians, for conversation, for advocacy, for education, and for community engagement. We really believe in investing back in our community as much as you invest in us.
Thank you all very much for the support you have already given us. If this is something you can’t afford to do, please help us spread this request so that we can keep our doors open.
Like many of you, the Bipartisan Café began 2020 with high hopes. We were on track to pay off debt by the end of 2020 and we had plans to replace our 15 year old espresso machine. It’s been a good machine but it’s beginning to nickel and dime us to death. We had our eye on a new Magic Chef oven which would make our sandwiches come out faster, hotter, and allow us to expand our food offerings. Instead of realizing that hope, we closed for 6 weeks and incurred more debt. Instead of adding new equipment, we had to install a takeout window and absorb multiple COVID related expenses. We’ve had to reduce staffing and watch our livelihoods diminish.
We have done many things to try to adapt to COVID and our changing economy. We applied for, and received, PPP and we worked with our landlord who was very patient and gracious while we redesigned our service model. We put in a walk up window and added online ordering which allowed our staff to feel safe coming to work and created no-contact pick up. We adjusted our menu as we are unable to keep as much perishable food when sales are slower. We adjusted staff schedules, changed our business hours, and took inventory of our most popular items. I finally applied for a small business loan through US Bank (where my business account has been in good standing for 15 years) but was denied because our account balance remains so low. As a business owner, you compete for your customers. You know that your product, your business model and your values can make or break you. If this was a defeat based on our poor performance, I could much more easily walk away. Instead, this is a failure of our leadership to support our local economies and vulnerable small businesses.
Our community has been very good to us. Between Thanksgiving week and New Year’s, you all were amazing. But now we have hit the after the holidays doldrums. It is not fair that the community is tasked with keeping all of their favorite places afloat. Asking for more help feels horrible. But as it stands, we feel particularly vulnerable looking at the next 8 weeks, the slowest time of the year between holidays and spring break.
We thank you for all of the love and support over the years, especially the last 10 months. We know this is a big ask. We know that every restaurant and bar in this neighborhood, and this town, are also on your minds. They all deserve it. We need all of them and have lost too many great places already.
I would like to thank my business partner, Hobie, for her flexibility, resilience, creativity, and strength through the last 10 months. I’d like to thank my children for stepping up, adjusting, leading, and innovating to keep this business going. I would like to thank my employees who have stuck with us through the many drastic changes and hard times, and thank the employees who have been with us over the years or who were not able to continue with us through the pandemic. I’d also like to thank our neighborhood. We’ve been lucky to have so many great businesses move into the area. We have loved being a meeting place, a place for politics and politicians, for conversation, for advocacy, for education, and for community engagement. We really believe in investing back in our community as much as you invest in us.
Thank you all very much for the support you have already given us. If this is something you can’t afford to do, please help us spread this request so that we can keep our doors open.
Organizer
PETER EMERSON
Organizer
Portland, OR
