Angela Yee is a busy woman. Not only is she one-third of the popular Power 105.1 morning show The Breakfast Club, but she also co-owns the Brooklyn juicing joint Juices For Life and Detroit hair extension business Private Label, dabbles in real estate, and shows up weekly for her podcast Lip Service. Now, she is adding coffee to her diverse portfolio.
CUP Cafe, short for “Coffee Uplifts People,” is a collaboration with business partners Tony Forte, LaRon Batchelor, and the Brooklyn Roasting Company, founded by Jim Munson. In an amazing effort to reconcile past discriminatory practices against people of color in the coffee industry, Angela Yee and her partners have been intentional about employing Black-owned businesses to construct the brick-and-mortar location. In addition to working with Black-owned contractors, Yee is also looking to hire new employees to work at CUP Cafe. Most likely, the shop will need baristas, cashiers, and managing staff.
“We’re using all Black-owned businesses in the process of building that space out,” Angela Yee told Black Enterprise. ““Coffee beans come from all these different places — Ethiopia, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Guyana, Jamaica. The amount of money that people make in coffee, I think, has been unfair for so long. So, now it’s time to make sure that the people who are actually the ones that are in these countries are the ones that are benefiting.”
The opening of the cafe comes as New York celebrates the third annual Angela Yee Day event taking place at the Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn on Aug. 28. Designated a day of celebration by NY mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018, this year’s event will have multiple performances from HoodCelebrityy, Capella Grey, Naomi Cowan, and Romain Virgo, to name a few. Angela Yee will open the event that starts at noon. Activities throughout the day will include exhibits of Caribbean culture and local businesses owned by people of color.
CUP Cafe is set to open in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, New York on Friday, August 27.
