Square Celebrates Oakland’s Red Bay Coffee On Instagram But Needs To Show It Employs Black Folks Too
On Instagram the operator of the Square account wrote the following:
“Coffee comes from Africa — that’s where the first coffee was grown — but you don’t see a lot of people of color in the coffee industry.”
Meet the Konte family, founders of @redbaycoffee. Keba Konte dipped his toe into the specialty coffee industry in 2014, roasting coffee in Whirley Pops — popcorn makers — that he found at thrift stores. From his garden shed, he built something he describes as “beautiful.” Red Bay Coffee has grown into three Bay Area cafes, a roastery in Oakland’s Fruitvale district, and a location opening soon in Los Angeles.
For the Konte family, this isn’t just about making a good cup of coffee — it’s about empowering their local community and coffee suppliers through economic opportunity. Red Bay is focused on making the speciality coffee industry a more inclusive space for everyone.
“Hiring people and creating jobs is our North Star,” says Jessica, Keba’s daughter. “We hire formerly incarcerated women and young folks coming out of the foster system. We hire women in places of leadership, especially black women, whose families originate from coffee-producing countries.”
Oakland is special to Keba and his family. They were priced out of San Francisco in the 1990s and moved to Oakland with the intention of building something that would help their community thrive. Red Bay’s ethos is rooted in community, in building each other up, and in helping the city’s entrepreneurs and makers succeed.
“Tap into what your community has to offer, whether it’s startup capital or space. Use the kitchen at church during the week when it’s available. Really seek out the resources in your community, because there are more than you think.”
Awesome. But Square itself must commit to hire qualified black local Oaklanders for jobs, first.
I see you Jack Dorsey!
Stay tuned.
ONN – Square Celebrates Oakland’s Red Bay Coffee On Instagram But Needs To Show It Employs Black Folks Too
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.