Rock City Employee Cooperative is a 25-worker café and roastery in Rockland, ME, that became a cooperative corporation in 2018. The founder started the business in 1992 and saw in the sale an opportunity to reward workers for their efforts building the business, assurance that the café’s character as a main street community center would continue, and an ongoing revenue stream by financing a portion of the transaction’s loan herself. Workers in the rural Maine region are often tempted to leave for opportunities elsewhere, but the new employee owners of the café are investing for the long term.
State: Maine
Industry: Food and Beverage
Number of employees: 35
Became employee owned: 2018
Assistance: Cooperative Development Institute (CDI)
Financing: Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE)
Learn more
- https://rock-city-coffee.myshopify.com/
- Bloomberg – Retiring Boomers Turn to Co-Ops to Keep Their Businesses Running (2020)
- CDI – The Rock City Roasters and Cafe Story (video) (2018)
- Bangor Daily News – What happened after 17 employees took over a beloved Maine business (2018)
- Daily Coffee News – Rock City Coffee Roasters in Maine Is Now a Worker-Owned Cooperative (2018)
- Rock City Coffee workers to become business owners (2018)
- WABI – From employees to owners, Rock City in Rockland gains new ownership (2018)
- Bangor Daily News – Baristas to business owners: Maine entrepreneur to sign company over to employees (2016)
- Maine Insights – Rock City Café of Rockland Maine to become employee owned (2016)
- Shelterforce – The Next Boom for Worker Co-ops? (2016)
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