Root Down Workers' Cooperative Café

12/01/2021

Fundraising campaign update! We have now reached 32% of our goal!!
We are so grateful for all the support and donations we have received over the past few weeks.
Anyone who donates will be entered to win a weekend getaway at the Ness Creek Site, as well will receive a tax receipt.
There are several ways to donate:
Canada Helps https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/m/66044 or go to our website www.jackmillikincentre.com and click on the Donate button.
Cheque or cash to any of our board members
E-transfer? Please e-transfer to [email protected] (if etransferring please leave email and address information)
Thank-you so much for your time and generosity!

10/31/2016

Dear friends, it is long past due that we moved along from our cafe business by taking the final step of selling off the equipment that we used to run Root Down Workers' Co-operative Cafe.

Please help us close this chapter by taking a look at our equipment lists (with photos) and add a comment to any of the items that you are interested in then send an email to [email protected] with your contact information. If you know anyone who is starting a new restaurant business or just wants some cheap kitchen gear, please share these lists with them.

Updated List of Items for Sale - https://goo.gl/d3FFAH

08/27/2014

Yeah! 4 more likes and 8 new views ;)

01/31/2014

Interesting article about the arguments for tip-less restaurants. Root Down ran our café on "totally socialized tips," but we think this person had even better ideas! After reading this article, what do you think of restaurants that raise the wage and forego tipping systems? http://ow.ly/t8w0Z

For more than six years, I ran a restaurant without tips. A couple of years after opening the Linkery restaurant in San Diego, the team and I...

01/13/2014

Any event that seeks to empower workers through organizing on the job is great with us! This is happening two weekends from now at the U of S on the Jan 24th-26th weekend.

If you like co-ops, you're sure to get a lot out of Ajumu Nangwaya's scheduled talk on worker cooperatives as social transformation. If you're a worker in a restaurant, retail or similarly un-unionized sector, you'll definitely be interested in the IWW's Sunday organizing workshop (all workers who do not have firing power over other workers are welcome).

All events are free & the organizers just ask that you register on their site (so they can predict how much food to prepare).

http://socialiststudents.ca/getorganized

12/07/2013

Dear fans of Root Down,

It’s with sad regret that we have to announce the cancellation of our December Sunday brunches (tomorrow and next weekend). We’re having significant staffing issues, and we can’t make these happen with holiday plans and needed family time. It's a hard decision to not have these, but we decided that we don’t want to risk having the brunches be anything less than an delicious, relaxing, and healthy experience for everyone involved. Thank you so much for attending our November pop-ups (and thanks to Station 20 West for hosting them!). Please stay tuned for more Root Down events in January!

11/29/2013

Wow! One more reason that Good Food Junction at Station 20 is amazing- this is fantastic!!

From the farmer’s field to the kitchen table, all food has a story. One Saskatoon grocery store has decided to tell it.

11/08/2013

Thank you to our community programs from CHEP, our local CSAs, urban agricultural programs, the Good Food Box (CHEP), our Community Gardens (CHEP and the City), Market days at local organisations, and the Saskatoon Food Bank and Learning centre. Of course the issue is very deep and a lot of work has to be done to change the system of poverty and hunger in our country, but thank you to these organisations and their volunteers who are educating everyone and creating food programs in our city.
Sesame Street taught us a lot as youth- about diversity, sharing, counting, and even about sexual diversity (although we may not have realized it at the time ;) ). This is a big thing they tackled in this video, and they did it well.

A topic you would have thought too tragic to cover on "Sesame Street."

10/16/2013

I made this :)

10/08/2013

Just an update to do with a Strike Watch at Loblaws-owned stores in Saskatchewan.

In the course of running our catering business, we end up resorting to purchase a number of organic food items from stores in the Loblaws chain. We have thus been watching developments of the strike at Superstore (owned by Loblaws) next door in Alberta very closely.

When Loblaws can shell out 12 BILLION dollars to purchase Shoppers Drug Mart, further casualizing workers (compressing hours and pay while expecting the same amount of work to be competently completed) is disgusting. We have been heartened by the determination of the workers to stand up to Loblaws and Albertans' support for them.

This is just a heads up that in Saskatchewan, negotiations between UFCW Canada Local 1400 and Loblaws have only reached tentative agreement. While we were picking up some items in Wholesale Club the other day, we saw a worker with a Strike Watch pin, and workers of UFCW 1400 may yet strike if they are being offered a bad deal by Loblaws.

Should UFCW 1400 call for a strike after its strike vote on the 15th and 16th, we will be finding alternatives (as Root Down and as individuals) to shopping at:
— Real Canadian Superstores & Liquorstores,
— Wholesale Club,
— Extra Foods,
— Shoppers Drug Mart,
— nofrills,
— T&T Supermarkets,
— Holt Renfrew,
— YIP – your independent grocer,
— Joe Fresh,
— and Bulk Barn.

We hope that you will respect the UFCW 1400 strike vote when it comes up on Oct 15 and 16. If workers vote to strike and pickets go up, please don't cross the picket lines, offer support to the picketing workers to show your support, and boycott the above Loblaws-owned stores in Sasksatchewan also. Boycotts count the most when they leverage worker power and advance our position as workers.

If you are involved in a business that buys from the above Loblaws stores, please do what you can, as we will, to steer your business shopping away from the stores also, for the duration of the strike.

Oct. 7: Please encourage all co-workers to hand in their strike registration forms, many have yet to be returned to the union office.