The Bazaar Cafe at 5927 California near 22nd Avenue, best known for their live music, “How To” classes, and charming garden, has hit hard financial times.
Owners Les and Makiko recently posted a letter on their website, explaining that they owe $7,000 for bills that are quickly coming due:
We have a serious shortage of funds and are unable to pay several major obligations that are due just after the first of the year. Specifically, sales taxes to the State (past due), Workers Comp insurance (due January 2nd), café rent (due January 1st) and the usual utilities, city business licenses and fees right around the corner in January.
They are asking the community to give whatever they can before January 2nd to help them raise the funds to keep the cafe open:
Please, if you can, make a contribution in an amount that is comfortable for you. If, on the other hand, you cannot afford to help, that’s OK. Please, please don’t put yourself in a bind on our behalf… we still appreciate your past support and hope you’ll come by the café as often as you can.
To help them out, click the “Donate” button at the top of this page on their website to send funds via PayPal. If you don’t have a PayPal account, you can also mail or drop a check off at the cafe at 5927 California Street.
The Bazaar Cafe is one of only a few places where you can hear live music in the Richmond District. They regularly feature an eclectic lineup of independent artists, some of them local to the neighborhood. In the past year or so, they also added additional programming like free “How To” nights where patrons could learn everything from how to build a bike from scratch to how to write a perfect love letter.
Thanks to all the RichmondSFBlog readers that sent in this news. I hope the cafe is able able to stay afloat and I will be personally making a donation to help out. Good luck Les and Makiko, I hope we can continue to have you in the neighborhood.
Sarah B.
UPDATE: According to their Facebook page, the cafe was able to raise the needed funds:
Great news folks….we’ve surpassed our goal of $7,000! Thanks, thanks to all of you for your generosity and moral support. I’ll be contacting donors individually soon, as well as providing a complete update online. We’re a bit overwhelmed just now and grateful beyond what we can express.
give them money? to prop up a business which can’t stand on its own? go ahead if you like flushing money down the drain.
This business has been around for 13 years and hit an unexpected crisis. The community has rallied around the cafe and donations have exceeded expectations. I understand your point, Paul, but this business is a real treasure in our community. Thankfully, hundreds of other people agree. 🙂
I’ll happily donate and I go there all the time. This place is a real gem.
Pete – I’d rather flush my money into this business than another empty lot, dry cleaner or nail salon. It’s not like there are a lot of better businesses that are waiting in the wings.
Treating sales tax collections as income is *not* a good idea… i like this place too, but something seems a bit fishy.
Looks like they raised their money very quickly! Personally I would like them to be very transparent about how any surplus funds are used. It’s only right.
https://www.facebook.com/bazaarcafe
“Great news folks….we’ve surpassed our goal of $7,000! Thanks, thanks to all of you for your generosity and moral support. I’ll be contacting donors individually soon, as well as providing a complete update online. We’re a bit overwhelmed just now and grateful beyond what we can express.
Les
and
Makiko
Bazaar Cafe”
Seems those bills could not possibly be unexpected. How about just charging more for their services in future? If the public values the business, that should work. Asking for donations is strange.
For those who have something negative or suspicious to say, why don’t you skip posting the crap and go to the cafe and ask your questions over a tea or coffee in person. I think you will find Les and Makiko are friendly, loving and yes open about their business, They run a neighborhood venue that cultivates new music and musicians, offers some good food and coffee and has a great relationship with the neighborhood. They have a money problem like many small businesses,try juggling everything with a smile in this economy. Neighborhood businesses need support, its one thing that makes the Richmond a great place to live!
Some good news for a great business, musical venue, and gathering place. I don’t get there as often as I mean to.
I will add in regards to the curmudgeons (as if it needs saying), that rent, labor for baristas, insurance, etc. are all constant costs, whether you buy a cup of coffee or not. Add to that the price people expect for a good (but not precious) cup of coffee is within a narrow range, and their prices are reasonable (plus they’re inked up on the board; you gonna go raise all those prices in hard times?). Food costs by contrast would tend to track actual consumption (plus inflation, of which has hit food prices noticeably). And as they said, people are buying less. So I can’t comment on surprise costs, but whether not charging quite enough, or just the expected costs plus surprisingly low revenues, one does sometimes hit a wall. Good for them for asking for help rather than disappearing on us.
Sales tax: I’d guess a business of that size, while small, would pay monthly. But I can say from my smaller business (I pay yearly) I don’t keep a specific fund or jar under the bed for sales tax; I keep records, plow it into my expenses (such as printing trail maps), then when I report what I owe for sales tax, I pay out of funds (I hope) I have at the time from selling the maps I printed earlier. I print maps that sell out in a year; I have maps I printed 5-10 years ago still in stock but the printing costs were the same for each. Different line of work but not entirely unrelated issues.
I just found out about Les and Makiko’s troubles. If they’re still accepting donations, I plan to make one. The business is a joy and a boon to the neighborhood. It’s warm and welcoming and as has already been mentioned, it has a GREAT garden in the back. Most small businesses, like most people, live “paycheck to paycheck”. For most of us, that paycheck is pretty predictable. We know what’s in store. For a small business, during an economic downturn, the outlook is a bit more murky. It’s conforting to know that so many people chose to lift them up rather than kick them when they were down. Here’s to another 13 years of serving the community with art, grace, and good music.
A suggestion to them which may make some of the folks here more comfortable: ask for donations at all of the free events you host. I’ve attended two or three myself, purchase my cup of coffee or a hot sake, and sit and listen. I don’t remember hearing that donations were requested at any of them. I bet a lot of people would be more comfortable donating right after they got a nice free show. Perhaps you could split it with the artists or something like that.
I am glad to hear they raised the money. This is a great spot and I’ll aspire to drop by more often now that I know times are a little rough. I wish more small businesses put out a call for help when times got tough. Too often I miss out on businesses I kept thinking “I need to go there” and never got around to.
I would have gladly donated toward helping Video Cafe renovate their bathrooms earlier this year.
Business can’t operate properly and expects a charily- what is this? Get a hint- you’re not supposed to be in business. They’ll go under soon and expect more handouts.
@Robin that unexpected crisis was “unable to pay our bills”
@kayvaan if you go there all the time and are a loyal customer (meaning you actually buy products and don’t just use their space as your living room) then you do not need to donate anything for your business is enough of a donation
@Ben in SF perhaps you (and everyone else) not going there often is the reason they can’t pay their bills
There are plenty of other music and gathering venues in the Richmond.
They will be out of business soon as they don’t have the business sense, customer base, or both, to survive much longer.
@Wakamesalad – I do go there and I do pay money for coffee and food. And I also donated.
You and other free-market cranks like @tyler, @Camryn, @alyxandr and @pete forget that a free market operates in many ways. A free market includes a small business asking for help. Nobody is forcing anyone to donate. And yet $20K was donated. People value Bazaar cafe. People just PAID for their service. They are just paying in a different way. A somewhat unorthodox way, agreed.
Yes, perhaps Bazaar is not pulling in enough revenue from day-to-day operations. And maybe they should ask for donations at their shows as @Ben in SF suggested (actually, they DEFINITELY should).
I would suggest that you allow yourselves to think outside the box a little and accept that there are many, many ways for a free market to operate. This is an interesting experiment and I look forward to seeing how it evolves. Maybe they won’t last – who knows – but at least they’ll be around for a little while longer. And I definitely plan on showing my face there more.
Name-calling isn’t terribly attractive when done by wingnuts of *either* side, kayvaan.
OK – I apologize for calling people “cranks” although I really just meant it as “cranky” people. Feel free to call me a crank too! With regard to the actual substance of the debate, do you really think my opinion is “wingnut” or is that just hurt feelings talking?
ok kayvaan, you are a crank, although, that is the very censored version of my opinion of you right now 🙂
I don’t understand why the free market cranks are so uptight about people giving money to things they believe in – and yes you are free market cranks – own it
shawn- i prefer to live in a free society.
others here have explicitly stated they do not desire that.
Tyler, how does a cafe asking for donations risk your liberty? Please explain because now you have me scared. I did not realize the donations were mandatory. Dammit – I knew Obama would do something like this.
kayvaan- i can uze silly codes of logic, too.
Let’s face it, cafes and restaurants in the Richmond, especially those off the main strip, have always struggled to survive– that’s nothing new. Hell, much larger and better managed businesses have evaporated.. Anyone seen a Pasta Pamodoro lately ?
So even WITH the generous donations, the Bazaar Cafe is still in jeopardy of disappearing in a year if something isn’t done to draw more business. You know it, I know it, the owners know it.
But here’s the real problem: the Bazaar is a true neighborhood treasure. It is recognized as a community center hosting gatherings for high schools, artists, scientists, writers and poets, musicians, singer/songwriters, and has provided a quaint atmosphere and wifi for users in need– all for the price of a cup of coffee.
Anyone who’s performed or witnessed a performance here will tell you that the acoustics of the cafe are amazing– no amplification necessary. The garden at the Bazaar is maintained, beautiful and tranquil. One year a bird nested back there right within arm’s reach of everybody, patrons coming and going. Yet the fragile nest remained, the egg hatched, and the chick flew away with its mother unmolested. That’s the kind of garden it is, and those are the kind of patrons that visit the Bazaar Cafe.
For the owners, Les and Makiko, the Bazaar Cafe has been a labor of love, a product of care and doting, schlepping and standing.
For those of us who donated, I don’t think that there is any question that they are worthy and deserving of a grant to keep this cafe going, nor are there any concerns that they’re mis-using or wasting a penny of it.