Rising Star Fires More Employees, Temporarily Shutters Lakewood Location After 'Sip-In' Supporting Union Draws Crowds

Rising Star Coffee’s Downtown location. Talks of unionizing by baristas began last month, following complaints about safety at the company’s café in Lakewood. Credit: Mark Oprea

The Lakewood location of Rising Star is usually open until 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Last weekend, owners announced the shop would instead be closing at 1 p.m. for two days, which employees pushing for a union at the Rising Star location saw as retaliation for their organizing efforts.

Rising Star noted in advance on Instagram that workers would be paid for their full scheduled shifts. (They would, however, lose out on tips.) The local chain offered no reasons for the early closures but wrote it had “nothing to do with a union.”

Their workers didn’t buy it. On Friday, four of them announced a “sip-in” for Sunday to back baristas that had their shifts curtailed by upper management.

“This marks the third time they’ve cut our hours since we started organizing,” Nia Gatewood said in a video posted on Instagram.

“Feel free to order something even more intensive,” barista Clay Reid said. “Take your time. Sit in the cafe and enjoy it.”

“If there’s a line out the door,” Allie Jeswald, a former manager, added, “the door can’t close.”

A line out the door there was. By 2 p.m. on Sunday, the sip-in designed to grow solidarity for Lakewood baristas had escalated into tense territory when police were called to disperse “a hostile takeover of the business.”

Several protesters, management claimed, were blocking baristas from ending their shifts. Some walked into areas of the cafe off-limits to the public, they added.

“Please leave. Leave,” said a police officer in a video of the incident, as he and others walked protesters to the door. “Everybody out. It’s a private business.”

Two baristas were fired and three others were suspended for refusing to close at 1 p.m., several sources said. A handful of protesters unaffiliated with the cafe were banned for allegedly going behind the counter or obstructing baristas from talking to police.

“This was wholly unacceptable,” Rising Star, which didn’t respond to a request for further comment, said in a statement on Instagram.

Gatewood, who was suspended from her job Sunday, told Scene that, despite losing work, she was moved by the block-long turnout before things escalated.

“We got support from all corners,” Gatewood said. “We had regulars. A lot of friends. Nearby business owners. Families. Toddlers. Everyone.”

“I think they just want a better environment for us,” she said.

In July, manager Allie Jeswald began nudging fellow baristas after sending Rising Star owners a demand letter following claims that her colleagues were being exposed to carbon monoxide gas. Cafe owners and upper management weren’t taking it seriously enough, Jeswald claimed.

Jeswald was fired July 22. (Rising Star told Scene it was because she manufactured false work hours.) Shortly after, a Rising Star Workers Union was formed.

The Lakewood location is temporarily shut down while “claims of harassment” are being looked into, Rising Star said in its statement.

“We are working to support our team right now, and we love our Lakewood community. But the best way we can support our team at this point is to close the Lakewood cafe until further notice,” the company said on Instagram, where it has closed its comment section.

Rising Star has doubled down on its stance that it is pro-union, and that the weekend’s curtailed hours had nothing to do with its baristas desire to organize.

“If our employees choose to join or not join a union, that is their choice. But that is not what happened,” they said. “There is no place for harassment in our cafe. There is no place for hate or intimidation.”

Fired baristas like Gatewood, Jeswald and Reid are leaning on a GoFundMe page set up on Sunday to support them—to supplant lost wages and back future organizing plans—as they continue to pursue official unionization. Almost $6,000 had been raised as of Monday afternoon.

“I think they wanted to punish the people who were in the shop unionizing,” Gatewood said. “To tell you the truth? They were just upset that we were telling the public about how we feel.”

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