H aymarket cafe is a worker-owned co-operative book store and coffee shop built on the anarchist principles of collectivized labour, self-management and consensus decision making.

Haymarketeers Lee, Shawn and Jay engage in the consensus decision-makig process.

Our goals are threefold. First and foremost is to provide a comfortable and engaging space in Calgary for activists, radicals and progressive people of all stripes to build a community; to plan, engage, debate and just plain old socialize. Second, is to demonstrate that the anarchist model of co-operativism and direct democracy can build and maintain a functional and successful workplace. Third, is to propagandize: to disseminate literature on radical ideas, promote events that promote our idea of the future and to lend assistance to new co-operatives and collectives in the city of Calgary. We are not the sort of anarchists that will smash a Starbucks. Rather, our goal is to smash the system that makes Starbucks possible.

The Cafe
The cafe specializes in fairly traded coffees and teas, and light meals made from organic ingredients. All of our offerings, including our semi-famous bagles and 'cream cheese' with salsa, are fully vegan and we brew our coffee like we brew our politics: strong, with a bit of a kick.

The Bookstore
Our goal is to carry the books that the big chain stores don't and won't sell to you. Our emphasis is on radical non-fiction covering topics such as environmentalism, political science, philosophy, feminism and indiginous studies. Unlike a lot of radical bookstores, though, we don't just carry titles by dead white men with big beards. We also stock books on pirates, punks, grafitti artists and the like. We believe that anarchism isn't just about dry theory, it's about culture. And culture should be fun! We also stock a wide selection of zines and cd's.

Where and when
We are currently working on establishing our next store-front, so watch www.haymarketcafe.org for updates!

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