by Laurel Duggan
The Anarchist, a Canadian coffee shop dedicated to fighting capitalism, is going out of business on May 30, about one year after its opening due to a lack of capital, according to its owner.
The café sold coffee and tea alongside books and merchandise promoting radical leftist ideas, and was ardently anti-capitalist. The business was unable to obtain enough capital to stay in business during a slow winter season, the cafe’s owner, Gabriel Sims-Fewer, wrote in an online announcement about the closure.
“Unfortunately, the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left me unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term,” Sims-Fewer wrote.
Sims-Fewer opened the “anti-capitalist, anti-colonial” coffee shop after leaving Vancouver due to the area’s “classism,” according to a video tour of the café from June 2022 posted by Blog Toronto. The café was committed to “revolution, ending capitalism, improving the world’s “economic system” and “sparking conversations that will help implement these ideas.”
The shop sold artwork and clothing featuring slogans such as “Abolish all authority but yourself,” “Satan respects pronouns” and “Be gay do crime.” Artwork sold in the café also featured pictures of socialist icons Karl Marx and Che Guevara.
“The Anarchist has been a huge success in every way I hoped, and has given me so much inspiration and education that I plan to put to use in future projects. Keep an eye on the Instagram page to see what I end up doing next!” Sims-Fewer wrote at the close of the announcement. “F*ck the rich. F*ck the police. F*ck the state. F*ck the colonial death camp we call Canada.”
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Laurel Duggan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “The Anarchist Cafe” by The Anarchist Cafe.
