New Cafe Harvests Data, Bars Townies

by Thomas Breen | May 3, 2019 7:21 am

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Posted to: Arts & Culture, Business/ Economic Development, Food, Higher Ed, Downtown

New Haven’s newest cafe refused to serve me tea or refugee-made baklava. Or to serve the people who live upstairs, the high school kids across the street, or tens of thousands of other people who live in New Haven. But it did try to sell me on its new business model for running a college-town coffee shop fueled by customers’ data. The new coffee shop is called Shiru Cafe, which opened its doors Wednesday at 174 College St. on the first floor of one of New Haven’s newest upscale apartment complexes. If you’re a college student, you’re in luck. You’re invited in to surrender your personal data, come in, and spend hours enjoying food and beverages and free wifi. If you’re any other New Haven resident, the staff will kindly ask you to bring your business elsewhere. The new cafe is right across from Co-Op High School, whose students cannot shop or hang out there. It sells Havenly Treats baklava, whose refugee chefs may not sit inside or buy their own food there. Yale students started the Havenly Treats collaborative as a social-action project to help refugee chefs integrate into New Haven; so the student organizers, unlike the refugees themselves, may eat the baklava at Shiru. (Update: After this article was published, Havenly pulled out as a baklava supplier to Shiru and said it plans to organize a boycott.) Shiru, a chain founded in Japan in 2013, has two other locations in U.S. college communities, Amherst, Mass., and Providence, R.I.. It requires that all customers have a college or university ID in order to be served. The goal is not necessarily to serve coffee, but to provide an exclusive cafe-like experience and connections to potential employers in exchange for student data. Coffee’s free; other food allegedly sells at cost. “We’re trying to change the normal way of doing things, so that students don’t have to go through what was uncomfortable in the past,” the local cafe’s manager, Barbara Jeanne Lafond, told the Independent on Wednesday after this reporter tried, and failed, to buy a cup of tea. I was allowed to tarry a bit to learn more about the newest addition to New Haven’s coffeehouse scene. Click on the Facebook Live video at the top of the article to watch an interview with Lafond and the cafe’s spokesperson that took place after the refusal to serve. That student discomfort, presumably, involved having to find a space in a “traditional” cafe where anyone can sip a cup of coffee, nosh, hang out, do work, chat, and apply for jobs. So instead, Shiru Cafe has crafted an exclusive, cafe-like space designed to connect college students with potential employers. College students must register through a Shiru app, which asks about name, age, school affiliation, and course of study. Then, when they arrive at the cafe, they must present their student IDs to the baristas they can pick up a free cup of coffee or purchase a baked good provided by Havenly or Katalina’s. Shiru says it uses the data submitted by student customers to connect them with partner employers like Racepoint Global and Service After Service that are looking to hire college-educated interns and workers. Critics of that data-for-coffee-and-jobs business model have called into question the privacy and security of information provided by students to the cafe, as well as the cafe’s partnerships with corporate giants like JP Morgan. “The unique business model that we operate under at the end of the day isn’t really about selling coffee,” said Isabel Stroving, Shiru’s vice president of client strategy and its media spokesperson. Instead, she said, it’s about connecting college students with jobs. “These are designated spaces for students to empower their future careers,” she said. “I think the biggest thing to remember is that we’re not your traditional coffee shop. We’re not your traditional business. We’re really trying to do something new here.” And why can’t high school students join in on the free coffee and job connections? “High school students aren’t looking for a career,” Lafond said, “they’re looking to go to college to get the career.” Is This Legal? Stroving said that the business, despite its unorthodox business model, is fully legal and in compliance with federal anti-discrimination legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits businesses from discriminating against customers because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. “We’re certainly legally owned and operated and everything like that,’ she said, “because the idea of student is inclusive of all of those different backgrounds. We’re just filling the niche specifically for students, the same way that a specific app or something like that might be specifically geared towards students.” Local civil rights attorney Alex Taubes is less confident in the legal soundness of Shiru’s business model. “The business may be right about current civil rights law in Connecticut,” he told the Independent, “but it’s no sure thing, and even if they’re challenged and win in court, the city or state could always change the law.” He noted that the dating app Tinder recently paid out over $17 million to settle a California class action lawsuit related to the app’s practice of charging people 30 and older double the standard price for one of its subscription services. “The app’s defense was that it’s like having a ‘student discount,’” Taubes continued, “but ultimately settled. Whether the cafe’s ‘business model’ survives may come down to its promise that it isn’t just for Yalies—that, for example, students from Gateway and Southern will have an equal opportunity to use the space. Otherwise, it will be subject to challenge from lawsuits and the public.” Even one city official who attended the cafe’s grand opening on Wednesday expressed some reservation over the business model in an otherwise laudatory Facebook post. “I attended another interesting grand opening in New Haven today,” Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana wrote on Facebook Wednesday night, “this time for Shiru Cafe on College Street. It’s unfortunately a place only for college students, designed for them to meet and connect with potential employers.” But Fontana saw an upside: “It offers free coffee, free WiFi, and free electronics charging in an absolutely beautiful space. If you’re in school, or know someone who is, it’s a new and innovative concept definitely worth their checking out ... it’s only the 3rd of its kind in the U.S.!” The only students inside the cafe Wednesday afternoon with whom this reporter was able to speak before management asked me to leave were Yale students. Four declined to comment as this reporter asked for their thoughts on the cafe’s unique business model as the cafe’s manager stood a few feet away, video recording the conversation on her phone. Tiffany Hu, a student at the Yale School of Public Health, did speak. She said she was intrigued by and appreciated the cafe’s business model of providing free coffee to college students. Students are often on tight budgets, she said, and some cannot afford to go to a cafe and pay for coffee and food every time they need to get off campus and do work. But, she said, she recognizes that the cafe might prove to be a problem in how it segregates college students from other city residents. “Historically there’s been a divide between Yale and the New Haven community,” she said. “This probably doesn’t help.”

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posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 7:41am It’s coffee. Refusal to rent impacts someone’s life, for instance. Getting upset over refusal to serve non-college students coffee? Is this really a pressing concern in New Haven? Do lawyers and civil rights activists have nothing better to do? Is NHI trying to rile up discontent by using the term “townie”?

posted by: redman on May 3, 2019 7:43am Free enterprise will put this place out of business.

posted by: ItsGettingBetter on May 3, 2019 7:55am Steve Fontana,

There is nothing free about giving over your data. Get with the times. Hope you fail Shiru.

posted by: Hartman13 on May 3, 2019 8:11am Honestly… Not everything’s a fight. I fully agree with CANYNJCT & redman. The article seems loaded to me but the bottom line is, coffee is not scarce in New Haven. Choose a local shop that has coffee you like and spend your nickels there instead. I’d keep typing but I’m off to Coffee X in Westville. The owner’s cool and (even though I’m an ex-cop) greets me warmly, smiles and doesn’t discriminate.

posted by: AverageTaxpayer on May 3, 2019 8:17am Ducking obnoxious and emblematic of the growing disparity between the have and have-nots, which is on full display in downtown New Haven. If the elitists want to do something like this, do they need a storefront? Is part of the appeal the ego-kicks the rich kids receive when some poor fool wanders in, just looking for a cup of coffee, only to be shown out the door? I blame College and Crown almost as much as Shiru itself. As landlord they should have passed on this business and its ugly model.

posted by: Caroline Smith on May 3, 2019 8:17am There’s a lot about Shiru Cafe’s business model that is confusing and concerning. For me, I am most troubled by this idea they repeat often of creating “a comfortable environment” for students. This feels like coded language that been used to separate Yale-New Haven for decades — “protecting” students from New Haven and specifically it’s black and brown residents. This language and direct policy has brought so much pain and distance between Yale students and New Haven residents — leading to less friendship and relationship, less spaces to build power together, and less students staying and building a life in New Haven after they graduate.

posted by: Olorin on May 3, 2019 8:17am Shut. Them. Down.

posted by: johngmartin There are a lot of troubling things with this, and a lot of great comments that are getting at the heart of the problem. But one more small thought that is bothering me is that Shiru seems to have “appropriated” the concept of a cafe. If it was a ‘Shiru Recruitment Center’ that happened to serve free coffee to college students, I think I would roll my eyes and move on. But this feels more flagrant.

posted by: mspepper on May 3, 2019 8:33am Caroline Smith, You do realize that there are, in fact, Black and Brown students at Yale?

posted by: cunningham It seems like a better way to frame the business model would be as a co-working space for students, rather than a cafe. (WeWork has beer on tap, but no one marks them for not serving the public.) Seems like a case of bad branding/PR more than anything.

posted by: LorcaNotOrca on May 3, 2019 9:25am Ultimately what upsets me about this is that students from Yale and elsewhere are already so coddled and have so many resources given to them already, and this seems to take it one further. If you want an exclusive study center/cafe for students, make one that isn’t right downtown on College Street where it can be easily mistaken for a normal business. Seems like they had to be aware that turning people away would be a regular part of a day’s business, and if so, wouldn’t you not want that many “negative” interactions every day? And this is no-doubt an expensive storefront… how can they make enough money to stay open in the first place? Mostly free coffee and a few pastries can’t possibly pay the rent and the employees. And if the whole thing operates at a loss but is bankrolled elsewhere, then we’ve really got a case of elite privilege in action! Real life can’t possibly be that scary to Yale students that they can’t even stomach walking into a people’s cafe, can it??

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 9:26am posted by: johngmartin on May 3, 2019 8:29am

“...Shiru seems to have “appropriated” the concept of a cafe.” ———- How so? No one’s being forced to go there. That cafe is not the sole location to find jobs and network. They just had a new idea of helping college students find jobs…college students, who in fact, as another has mentioned, include minority students. And yes, minority students at Yale. They exist. It seems the concept of appropriating has been appropriated.

posted by: SLP on May 3, 2019 9:29am Completely agree with Cunningham regarding Shiru’s framing of its role. And as for framing, the Independent headline is needlessly and overly slanted (“New Cafe Harvests Data, Bars Townies”). I’m not sure yet what to think of this cafe ... my first reaction is that it is misguided, tone-deaf, and unnecessary. However, the headline and article were working so hard to bias me in that direction that I now must try to tease out what I was steered to think and what I actually think. This is not what I expect from the Independent.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 9:30am posted by: Olorin on May 3, 2019 8:17am

Shut. Them. Down. ==== You won’t let college students have their own little space to drink coffee and find jobs? How does this place negatively affect your life? How is it offensive to you? This article incites perceived racial and class resentment. “Townie”? Who’s the editor of NHI?

posted by: ShadowBoxer on May 3, 2019 9:33am I think the real goal of the enterprise is to gain access to “customers’” data and when you download the app, you give the company access to quite a lot. They might then harvest the data, and sell it, use it, market it to others. Depending on your view, this can be Orwellian or what your desktop does when you buy something off of Amazon, and then you later notice an ad for something similar. And no, they don’t care about the online lives of people over say, aged 25. I think the “coffee” and idea that the cafe is designed to help students network w/ a employers is just window dressing. This is why they don’t want some middle-aged person, senior citizen, or townie inside, because the data they harvest off the device will muddle the picture. If I am middle aged, and walk in and email from an AOL account, use Facebook and not WeChat, and visit sights like CNN and the NH Register rather than Reddit, @OverheardatYale or the New Haven Independent, then the Big Data picture is blurred. The bottom line is the “cafe” may want to see what is trending in the online lives of young people, so they can use the data, sell the data, etc. These types of “peeking” - I won’t use the term “spying” are common in China, but as an American, they rub us the wrong way as well they may should. And if this is the case, the city should be upfront about it. I would encourage some enterprising student-soul to actually READ EVERY WORD OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS APP - I would even volunteer to do so as a public service and issue a summary if someone could get me a copy. And if the idea is to connect students w/ recruiters, why not allow adult recruiters who do have the social networks inside? I just heard on NPR this morning that unemployment is highest among teenagers, in part b/c they do not have the networks adults have. So, hey Shiru - why not do the teens a true public service and allow adults from HR offices? (Maybe that’s a dare…or would that muddy the business model?)

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 9:35am LorcaNotOrca, I’m skeptical about the practicality of this cafe and how much it can actually help someone get a job, but there are so many real inequalities in the world that are literally life and death situations. Some people are rich. Some are privileged. Some have advantages. That’s just life. As long as they don’t exploit the less privileged with the business model, just let them succeed or fail on their own.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 9:38am Also, why is everyone assuming that it’s for *Yale* students only? They said college students. Yale is not the only college in New Haven and surrounding areas.

posted by: CTBatman on May 3, 2019 9:43am So this is the stupidest thing I have seen in a long time. Here is an idea, open this place on campus, like in the old days when colleges had bars and cafes on campus. Why are you sticking this out in public, just to send people away. And boo hoo for the college kids who can’t find a safe place to do, whatever they are doing. Also, for the Yalies who want to be included in decisions about the school and the city, shame on them for making an EXCLUSIVE club for themselves.

posted by: William Kurtz Clumsy and tone-deaf at best; ludicrously exclusive and offensive at worst. Caroline is right—there is already enough encouragement for Yale students to avoid mixing with the hoi polloi. Do they really need a coffee shop whose business practice seems to include luring the unsuspecting in before shooing them away to prove how chic they are? That said, I also agree with John. This seems no different than any Yale club, student lounge, or ‘secret’ society. I question the wisdom of Havenly Treats doing business with Shiru, though.

posted by: CTBatman on May 3, 2019 9:55am What I see is, a fake coffee shop, collecting data from students and selling it to whatever companies are backing them. This is a face to face scam, as opposed to a telephone or email scam, to get peoples personal information. And the nasty lady in the video tells a story. One would think that someone who is trying to promote this idea, would be a tad pleasant. She was angry and irritated by this reporter, not the attitude of someone who is reaching out to the collegiate community. Beware students, it is a freakin scam….

posted by: Atticus Shrugged on May 3, 2019 9:57am Just to clarify, this is for college students. Not just Yale students. So, presumptively, each and every one of the students at Gateway who have college IDs, could simply jaunt down the block to get a free cup of coffee. This is not a Yale vs. New Haven debate. Indeed, this is not even on Yale’s campus or theoretically supported by Yale as it’s not in one of their properties. I have legitimate concerns about handing over data and the discrimination this implies. As many New Haveners needs access to good, reliable high speed internet and a place to research and apply for jobs. But let’s get real, it’s private property. And much like I can’t stroll onto other parts of Yale without an ID, I can’t go there. How is this different?

posted by: filmjerry on May 3, 2019 9:59am And how will this place fare when summer arrives and there are relatively few students in town? Blue State, Willoughby’s, and even Starbucks have many fewer customers when Yale is not in session. Is there realIy a need for such a business? The other coffee shops in town are essentially student hangouts.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 10:04am posted by: Caroline Smith on May 3, 2019 8:17am This feels like coded language that been used to separate Yale-New Haven for decades — “protecting” students from New Haven and specifically it’s black and brown residents. ========== It seems to be more about crime than the race of the residents. No one likes crime, especially the black and brown residents living in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

posted by: new havener on May 3, 2019 10:16am I’ll give them two years, and they’ll be gone. One to figure the business model doesn’t work, and another to save face after launching a foolhardy scheme. The rent’s going to be too damn high to be so exclusionary…

posted by: Andrew Paul Giering on May 3, 2019 10:24am Legal issues aside, I think this could be a valuable resource for students at nearby Gateway, and to a lesser extent for students at SCSU, Albertus, and UNH. It appears that it was placed here, in its third national location, because of Yale, but in practice Yale students have plenty of other resources to help them network and get jobs. If this business model can help students at Gateway, a stone’s throw away, all the better. That said, it’s wack that College and Crown allowed a tenant coffee shop that most of its residents won’t be able to enjoy. As for the town/gown divide, although any business excluding any resident puts a bad taste in my mouth, if this business manages to divert Yalies from other, better coffee shops, freeing up seats for the rest of us, it might not be such a bad thing.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 10:38am posted by: filmjerry on May 3, 2019 9:59am

Is there realIy a need for such a business? The other coffee shops in town are essentially student hangouts. === Apparently this one helps you find jobs. How well that fares is anyone’s guess…

posted by: Colin Ryan on May 3, 2019 10:55am I’m worried about the kids who awkwardly can’t find a seat at Shiru Cafe either. End of the road.

posted by: Gretchen Pritchard on May 3, 2019 10:55am On top of everything else that others have already mentioned, this is another example of privatizing and outsourcing the role of a non-profit, supposedly dedicated to the best interests of its clients (i.e. the college and its career counseling office), and turning it over to an algorithm-driven international private organization whose purpose, quite explicitly, is to make money. All done without the input or consent of the college itself. This is not to say that college career counseling services have done a good job in the current market; based on the experience of my adult kids and their peers, they have in fact been fairly clueless. But a strictly market-driven data-grabbing IT substitute would not appear to be the best replacement, either.

posted by: LorcaNotOrca on May 3, 2019 10:58am Yeah to be clear, I don’t think we need to lead a massive campaign to shut them down because ultimately it’s not worth freaking out about. Just seems a dumb idea to me. I can’t imagine they’ll be able to stay in business long, really.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 10:58am posted by: Atticus Shrugged on May 3, 2019 9:57am And much like I can’t stroll onto other parts of Yale without an ID, I can’t go there. How is this different? ======= I think being angry about something feels rewarding. We’re all guilty of this.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 11:05am “The new cafe is right across from Co-Op High School, whose students cannot shop or hang out there. It sells Havenly Treats baklava, whose refugee chefs may not sit inside or buy their own food there. (Yale students started the Havenly Treats collaborative as a social-action project to help refugee chefs integrate into New Haven; so the student organizers, unlike the refugees themselves, may eat the baklava at Shiru.)” ============== Really…? If they sold treats from another bakery, the same chefs wouldn’t be able to sit there either. If the refugees chefs registered and took classes at UNH, GCC, etc, mostly likely, they’d be able to buy their own baklavas. One can easily mistake this article as trying to stir up division. Just look at the comments below from people assuming it’s about rich Yale undergrads, when in fact, students from GCC, which is physically closer to this cafe than many undergraduate buildings, are entitled to enter this establishment as well. But of course we have to bring up race and class at every opportunity.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 11:07am posted by: Wooster Squared on May 3, 2019 11:00am You’ve got an upscale cafe serving Yale students who are mostly white and Asian and barring town residents who are overwhelmingly brown and black. Yikes. ======= Unless they turn away brown and black students from UNH or GCC, I will refrain from assuming the worst.

posted by: ItsGettingBetter on May 3, 2019 11:30am @Hartman13

‘Hold the spit in that burger…it’s for a cop.’

posted by: Arnie Pritchard on May 3, 2019 11:33am D

oes a “college ID” include employee ID’s? Could the thousands of residents of New Haven (and of other towns) who work for our local colleges be served at this place? And one question for those who say that there are lots of other places to get coffee - If some coffee shop excluded people of a particular race or gender or religion, would you say the same thing? I know that those discriminations might be illegal while what Shiru is doing may not be, but as an ethical issue what is the difference?

posted by: vpaul on May 3, 2019 11:41am SO, you only serve rich kids?? This dump is bound to fail.

posted by: Rev. Nathan on May 3, 2019 11:56am If learning about the world and being a part of the larger community where students live is “uncomfortable,” then we students should be pushed to leave our comfort zones, not pampered within our bubbles. More “town and gown” division is the last thing our city’s businesses should encourage—especially in a city with such enormous income inequality. This division is not just bad for New Haven. It likely also has a negative impact on students’ social awareness, which can effect their attitudes about class for years to come. Students have an impact on this city, and we should not be shielded from it. I will stay away from Shiru Cafe, and I encourage others to make the same choice.

posted by: Eric B. Smith on May 3, 2019 12:25pm “...so that students don’t have to go through what was uncomfortable in the past,” the local cafe’s manager, Barbara Jeanne Lafond, told the Independent. Hmmm…not a good quote. Might want to work on your marketing strategy. Having a business model that requires employees to tell potential customers they can’t be served IS NOT a recipe for success. It’s called discrimination. Not good. I have a feeling this won’t end well!

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 12:50pm posted by: vpaul on May 3, 2019 11:41am

SO, you only serve rich kids??

======= Why do you assume it’s only open to Yale students? Why do you assume only rich kids attend Yale?

How many Yale students do you know?

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 12:55pm @ Rev. Nathan, Not one of us lives in a state of voluntary poverty. We live with our own privileges that others lack. It’s a coffee shop for college students to increase their chances of finding a job. And in the first picture, I see minority students. It’s not “white only”. It’s not “Yale only”. Someone had a (seemingly bad) idea to combine coffee and resumes. It’s not race/class warfare, although some seem to be quick to perceive it that way.

posted by: JohnTulin on May 3, 2019 12:57pm Boycott Havenly or Katalina’s until they boycott Shiru.

posted by: Rev. Nathan on May 3, 2019 1:35pm CANYNJCT - I did not say anything about either race (focusing instead on the division of “town/gown”) or Yale (fully understanding that Gateway, Southern Connecticut, and other students are allowed). I think you might be reading the content of others’ comments into my own? But I can say one thing: Our campuses already have career-service offices. Many people in New Haven need help finding employment, but it’s not us students who need that help the most. No, this isn’t about helping people find jobs - it’s about helping employers and other businesses get access to our (students’) data. And that’s not an acceptable reason to further encourage the harmful town/gown divide that exists in downtown New Haven. It may not be “about” class warfare, but it still plays into existing social dynamics, and we need to be cognizant of that.

posted by: New Haven Urbanism Are people entitled to walk into a dog grooming business and request that they be groomed? If the dog grooming place refuses, have they unfairly discriminating against you? Or have you requested that they provide you with a service that they do not offer? Tom is an excellent reporter and I enjoy much of his work, but I wonder if this incident is more of a misunderstanding than an example of a prejudice business practice. Shiru Cafe partners with employers who value data about college students. In order to attract college students willing to provide valuable data to employees, the Cafe provides discount pastries and free coffee. The point of the business is not to sell coffee and pastries, but to provide data to employers (or connect college students with employers). This business essentially sells data, job networking, and business connections. This business does not value non-college student data because its partners, the employers, do not value non-college student data. This business model might work just as well as a puppy petting zoo instead of a “cafe”. Personally, I find the name Shiru Cafe misleading and I might be put-off if I tried to go into the cafe to order something under the assumption that this was a regular cafe, but it turned out that it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean the business is wrong, that means that I did not understand the business before I walked in. I wonder if a better business model would be to operate as a regular cafe open to any paying customer, and, in addition, offer free coffee to college students who provide their data to employers. The idea of wanting to create a “comfortable space for college students” is also odd to me. But this isn’t my business and I can’t tell someone else how to operate their business. It may fail or it may succeed, but I have not been presented with enough information to know whether or not this business is illegally discriminating (or if its practices should be made illegal).

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 1:57pm posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on May 3, 2019 1:45pm

I wonder if a better business model would be to operate as a regular cafe open to any paying customer, and, in addition, offer free coffee to college students who provide their data to employers.

======= That sounds like a more reasonable idea. Wish I had enough money to bankroll such an operation.

posted by: David100 on May 3, 2019 2:22pm This is not about Yale, as various commentators have said. But about a business model that seems poorly thought out, badly articulated, and seemingly destined to fail. I suspect it won’t survive the summer. One can hope.

posted by: New Haven Urbanism One other thought. It is fine for businesses to refuse to accept foreign currency for purchases. I cannot use Euros to buy a coffee at Blue State Coffee. That does not mean that I am being discriminated against, it just means that I am not using a type of currency that is accepted at that establishment. Similarly, the currency that Shiru Cafe accepts as payment for its services is college student’s data. If you are not a college student, then you do not have the currency that Shiru Cafe accepts. What makes this a little confusing is that they do offer pastries for sale at cost. There is a discount built-in to the price of those pastries that is covered by the sale of the student’s data to companies. Hypothetically, Shiru Cafe could raise the price of those pastries and sell them to the public for a profit, but that is a different business model than the one they currently operate under.

posted by: Stylo on May 3, 2019 5:08pm Terrible PR on behalf of this place. A few inflammatory things said: Suggesting that other coffee shops aren’t “safe” because the unwashed masses use them. Clearly many New Haven coffee shops are already great environments for students. The other one: “High school students aren’t looking for a career,” Lafond said, “they’re looking to go to college to get the career.” That’s incredibly elitist. Many high school students will graduate and start great careers. Or are already thinking of what they want to do. Some will self-teach skills, some will graduate from a trade school, some will enter an apprentice. And many will do better than a good chunk of college grads that are saddled with incredible debt and poor job prospects.

posted by: mcg2000 on May 3, 2019 5:35pm Apparently, Shiru Cafe is in the date mining and selling of college students’ data business. They dm are not interested in being a regular cafe open to the public. They are not interested in connecting New Haven residents unaffiliated with any of the local colleges or universities with job networking resources. They are also not interested in providing career mentorship to high school students. It looks like they’re also unconcerned with the optics of how their business is erroneously perceived to the public and how this can perpetuate town/gown tensions. In addition to the

not selling food and drinks to the general public, the whole we’re into recruitment but not in serving everyone seeking these services because we are really data mining is disconcerting. I’m disappointed about the perception issue and how unconcerned Shiru Cafe appears to be about it and about being a good neighbor in general. I’m also disappointed that whatever guidance they may have received from the landlord or city officials was not sufficient to prevent this from happening in the first place.

posted by: EPDP on May 3, 2019 5:50pm What are you townies complaining about? If you think all Yalies are arrogant, self-absorbed and elitist then why would you want to sit down and have coffee with them at this networking club that offers only one lousy cup of coffee, which is probably watered down worse than Dunkin Donuts coffee. It is you townies who are being judgmental of a corporation looking to start up a new business idea. This is called capitalism! Go move to the Soviet Union or China if you like socialism so much.

posted by: vpaul on May 3, 2019 6:05pm Hey, CANYNJCT - Who said anything about Yale?? You free marketers demonstrate why capitalism needs to be highly regulated. Have a nice day.

posted by: ShadowBoxer on May 3, 2019 6:43pm A few things should be emphasized here. @Jonathan Hopkins - yes, he echoes my sentiments this morning. The “cafe” is really a guise to get students’ data. Were I college student, would a free cup of coffee or pastry be worth it to me in exchange for my data? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the person. I think the free market is such that I may or may not care if some corporate entity looks at my data. Or I may. @Stylo is right too: the clerk’s comment is something one would only hear in a Blue State - that “high school is about preparing kids for college.” It is elitist. Having said that though, I saw the whole Facebook video and give BOTH the reporter and the cashier props for how they handled themselves. The reporter thanked her at the end - essentially by his tone of voice saying “I realize you are not the problem” and the cashier was gracious. Give her a raise tomorrow. I think the one issue that has not been pointed out is that for many non townies, and suburban CT residents, CT people come into two for three things: cultural amenities, to see a relative at the hospital, and for jury duty. Now, imagine coming in from out of town, seeing a loved one dying from cancer in Smilow at YNNH, and wanting to clear your head or go out for an old fashioned cigarette and walk around, dare to wonder into something cool and exotic like a “Shiru” and do something crazy - order coffee. Then you are basically told you aren’t hip enough b/c you don’t have the right “app” or “ID.” Has anyone thought of that? - C’mon man! The Yale students and all students going in there should realize they are being played - and if they as legal adults consent to being played, its fine by me. Reminds me of a joke I coined: Q: “Hey freshman, what you doin’ this summer?”

A: “Canvassing for Bernie!” Q “Hey Junior, what you up to this summer?”

A: “Interning at JP Morgan.” And tbh, that is no joke. That is the truth. And maybe why red states see us as “elitist.”

posted by: LoveNH on May 3, 2019 7:07pm Years ago the Daily Cafe was a place where people came to enjoy a cup of coffee (it was only open for people interested in having coffee… and those who weren’t). Town and Yale mixed. For years.

Then Yale landlords shut them down (okay okay - rumor was they didn’t pay rent, but that was a small detail in the grand scheme of what the Daily brought to this city). And now we have devolved to a cafe that only let’s my ass in with my Yale ID? F that. It ain’t right. I’d rather go to bulldog freakin burrito.

posted by: AverageTaxpayer on May 3, 2019 7:45pm @ Hopkins—You have a storefront, you advertise yourself as a cafe, and not a club. Of course it is an issue if your cafe is not open to everyone. Luckily in America we have the Public Accommodations Act/Law, which provides that your public business has to serve everyone, not a select few. If Shiru Cafe wanted to change its name to Club Shiru, this entire controversy would go away. (They’d become the equivalent of the Christian Science Reading Room). Instead their ownership likes to market themselves as some weird establishment that is only open to the “right” people, and they eem to get off on turning the greater public away. For that they deserve the criticism and shunning. It really is that simple.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 3, 2019 9:28pm posted by: vpaul on May 3, 2019 6:05pm

Hey, CANYNJCT - Who said anything about Yale?? You free marketers demonstrate why capitalism needs to be highly regulated. Have a nice day.

======= Someone has not read the comments here. And the follow-up article.

posted by: Bill Saunders on May 3, 2019 11:43pm CANYNJCT, They proper term at play here is TownY, not Townie…...

posted by: Bill Saunders on May 4, 2019 12:04am The really big question is ‘how is personal data so damned profitable’? This ‘quote cafe’ is just asking that ‘the people that qualify’ to live in a ‘Brick and Mortar App’......

Now that the local ‘food purveyor’ has pulled out, this whole scheme just got ‘beyond virtual’. There needs to be a new term for these Tech-Based Carpetbaggers…... Offer your neologism! ps. These are Asian-Based Marketing Concepts.

There have been a bunch cropping up around town lately.

posted by: New Haven Urbanism AT, I agree that the name “Cafe” is misleading, and I would prefer that they change it, but can I legally impose my personal preference on a private business? Is it illegal to call it a “cafe”? What if a business is called a “co-op”, but that business is not cooperatively owned. Instead, it is individually owned. Should it be forced to change its name based on my confusion of what the business is? Naming businesses is tricky and involves a lot of brainstorming and trade-offs. Some hair salons call themselves “beauty studios” and people mistake them for photography businesses. Should they be forced to change their name?

posted by: CityYankee on May 4, 2019 3:44pm @those who feel this is legal and ethical business practice— I can imagine you at the lunch counters of the South during the Civil Rights era; telling Black patrons it’s no big deal- just go elsewhere. Your classism, racism, and elitism are showing!

posted by: New Haven Urbanism For anyone who disapproves of exclusionary spaces, perhaps you’d be willing to support an effort to amend an existing zoning requirement in New Haven, which mandates that buildings in the city’s central business districts provide 50 square feet of amenities space per housing unit [see ZONING ORDINANCE CITY OF NEW HAVEN. ARTICLE V. BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS. Section 43. - Bulk and yard regulations for business and industrial districts (h)(3)]. Would anyone like to help encourage exclusive and private residential amenities spaces like fitness centers, co-working spaces, and courtyards at new apartment buildings to be more accessible to the public? CityYankee, I am not interested in having my data mined and sold to third parties, so I will not be patronizing this cafe, but if others do not mind exchanging valuable information for coffee and wifi, I am not going to try to stop them. If you know of an instance where this business refused to service a college student based on their class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, I will help to promote a boycott of this business. So far, I have not seen enough evidence for me to want to actively work towards shutting this business down. I am open to having my mind changed, but I need evidence of discrimination based on one’s class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion. So far, all I can determine is that a very respectful, patient, and intelligent white man was informed that he could not buy a cup of coffee because the business does not sell coffee to anyone, and an employee made some off-putting remarks that could be explained as an honest misinterpretation, misspoken phrase, informal remark made by someone who was unprepared, or regrettable gaffe on her behalf. It’s best to be certain that people are being harmed before boycotting, otherwise the only people ultimately harmed may be the workers who lose their jobs as a result of the boycott.

posted by: nmb1234 on May 5, 2019 9:49am Not open to the public, this is a private club. Why not post information to that effect on the facade, rather than allow it to continue with a standard storefront?

posted by: CityYankee on May 5, 2019 9:57am @hopkins— a coffee bar is different than a gym. On the one hand— hyper-sensitivity to perceived slights seems to be the purview of only certain select oppressed groups, if I get the tone of the article and comments right. Townies are not in vogue. On the other hand; the mental gymnastics of folks who seem to sit home, waiting for a comment so they can dissect it with surgical precision and take an opposing side is becoming tiresome. As usual, what I read here is all ” ... a tale. Told by an idiot , full of sound and fury… signifying nothing”. I include my own comments in the bunch but it is getting boring because it goes round and round with no solution. But we don’t want solutions;do we? We just want to vent and be outraged on the sofa and not actually do anything.

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 5, 2019 12:52pm posted by: CityYankee on May 5, 2019 9:57am

But we don’t want solutions;do we? We just want to vent and be outraged on the sofa and not actually do anything.

==== Hmm..Is there anything to even do? Must we be outraged over everything and anything? This article presents a biased story about perceived class discrimination, and based on the comments, drumming up class/race-based resentment over a “cafe” that impacts no one significantly and would not even be on anyone’s radar. Who’s the one being “outraged”? Whatever their bizarre business model is, it’s not exclusive to Yale, but of course, some of the comments are quick to jump on the hate-Yale parade. Did this establishment kick out non-Yale college students? Did they kick out Yale students of color? Until actual race or class-based discrimination happens, what’s there to be outraged about? I’m guilty of this as well, but I have a feeling outrage triggers some reward pathway in the brain. Why else are we prone to something so irrational?

posted by: CANYNJCT on May 5, 2019 1:28pm Hey NHI, Can you find out if Yale professors and doctors, for instance, are also barred since they are not college students? That information would be critical to determine if racism and classism are at play here. Insinuations are that they are racist and elitist. How does that help reconcile peace in this city?

posted by: BhuShu on May 5, 2019 1:49pm To CANYNJCT

It is, like others said, a recruitment center disguised as a coffee shop. Free coffee for all your personal information that we can sell..whoops I mean make biz connections. Really?!!How many jobs did students get out of this? Facts? Numbers? Where your proof of how it serves them? Filming a student being interviewed was share harassment of them. This is capitalism at its worst. An elitism without any moral obligation. I hope you fail and as a member of an integrated community that unlike Yale, does not keep everyone else out, I will work behind the scene with others to drive you out!

posted by: New Haven Urbanism CityYankee, I totally agree with your comment at 9:57am. I did not intend to directly compare private residential amenities like fitness centers with Shiru Cafe. I was merely noticing that the comments on this article seem to indicate that people are interested in encouraging more inclusive and accessible spaces. One recent phenomenon in New Haven has been that large multifamily rental apartment complexes have included private residential amenities spaces like fitness centers, co-working spaces, screening rooms, lounges, game rooms, and terraces for tenants. This phenomenon is, in part, a direct result of public policy through a zoning provision in the City that requires buildings to provide a minimum amount of amenities and outdoor space per housing unit. Totally separate from this article, I have been working to amend this zoning requirement in a way that would encourage amenities spaces to be more publicly-accessible. This, to me, might be a more fruitful endeavor than attempting to shut down a business with employees who might depend on that job to pay for their own education, or housing, or other living expenses. My inquiry about people’s interest in amending the zoning ordinance is genuine. I, too, have been concerned about our universal human capacity to talk past one another without ever getting to a resolution. I am trying, but perhaps failing, to get to a resolution here.

posted by: Bill Saunders on May 5, 2019 2:32pm City Yankee, From what I remember about ‘The Sound and the Fury’, that Idjut Benji told the full story of the Compson Family’s demise (in the ‘first chapter’), while keeping ‘the reader’ unaware of ‘the full implications’ of his ‘narrative’.

posted by: CityYankee on May 5, 2019 6:59pm @ Mr. Saunders: Thanks for writing. My quote was from a little earlier in time—- Macbeth:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

posted by: cranky1c on May 5, 2019 7:57pm When commentators on the political right talk about educated elites alienating working people, this is the mindset they’re referring to.

posted by: earthlobbyist Seems like the old lunch counter situation, I wonder what a happens when we start educating these students about the value of their data, that nothing is free, coffee is cheap and addictive, and people who come looking for you are not always as desireable as the people and situations we may seek. Seems like a data vacuuming system aimed an inexperienced people, but who knows, and who am I to judge? I would apply the HEAT principles of Honesty, Efficiency, Accountability and Transparency to my consideration.

posted by: Razzie on May 6, 2019 6:01pm This. Can’t. End. Well.



Putting aside the belief that this is an incredibly dumb (counterproductive as well as counter-intuitive) business model, I also share the belief that it is, upon close examination, unfairly discriminatory on a race and class basis. Providing Yalies with “safe spaces” in otherwise generally accessible downtown public accommodations, so they need not be distracted by the black and brown “townie” masses is much more than being simply wrong-headed or culturally offensive. It is similar to the “white flight” of the 1950s and ‘60s that gave rise to our massively segregated housing patterns of our Northern cities. Requiring a university ID reminds me of the “poll taxes” and literacy exams used by many southern states seeking to keep the vote white. In my view, the argument that relying on IDs cannot be discriminatory because there are black and brown students with IDs, and therefore able to get in is specious at best, and has been struck down countless times by courts using a disparate impact analysis. In a sea of black and brown townies, racial discrimination can be found to exist even though the complained of practice is not 100% exclusionary. Likewise, the argument that there is no monetary charge for the coffee, that it is given away for free, is irrelevant and not dispositive. The “Café” makes no pretense that nothing of value is exchanged in the transaction. The business model clearly identifies that data mining is the surrogate currency used. It is clearly of value to the owners and proponents of this business to bargain for the rights to the data and consumer habits possessed by its student customers. Their boldness simply begs the question of why their data mining practices require an advance exclusion of all persons who do not possess college ID. Seems to me that if they wish to implement such a radical, offensive and discriminatory business practice … that is the question that should be answered. This concept deserves to fail.