This Latina is Going Viral After Sharing Why Her Coffee Shop Could Shut Down
Photo by @jasonlecras, courtesy of @buddiesbk
Buddies Coffee co-owner Rachel Nieves is shedding light on the dark side of gentrification. In a new viral TikTok video, the entrepreneur burst into tears as she shared that she might have to close her Brooklyn-based business because her landlord is raising her shop’s rent and a new coffee shop is opening right next door to hers.
“This is my life, this coffee shop is my life. This is my business, I have no other form of income. I don’t have any partners,” Nieves said in the video, fighting back tears. “It feels like so many big corporations or big businesses that come here. It’s like predatory behavior to seek out a small business and plop the f** right next to them.”
The video has gained over 3 million views in less than 24 hours and has drawn support from regular TikTok users and mega-influencers alike. Singer Joe Jonas was among the earliest celebrities to share their support in Nieves’ comments.
“You are awesome. I’m coming to support,” he wrote. Within hours, the Jonas brother posted a TikTok video on his way to Buddies Coffee and shared the address with his 6.5 million followers.
In the past 24 hours, Nieves uploaded a couple of new videos on TikTok expressing gratitude for the support, online orders and coffee shop foot traffic that Buddies Coffee has already gained as a result.
On Wednesday evening, millionaire entrepreneur and TikToker Bethany Frankel asked Nieves in the comments, “How much is the increase?” “Neighboring businesses’ increase range [is] from $15,000 to $36,000 monthly,” Nieves responded to Frankel. “My current operations aren’t equipped nor am I in a financial position to manage an overhead like that on our own.”
Nieves bootstrapped her coffee business four years ago with just a few thousand dollars alongside co-owner and husband Taylor Nawrocki. In her video, she shared how meaningful it was to open and run a Puerto Rican-owned coffee shop in a neighborhood that was once home to a large Puerto Rican community – many had settled in the Brooklyn neighborhood in the late 1940s and 1950s after World War II – before sky-high buildings and astronomical rent prices pushed many out.
The threat Buddies Coffee faces is just the latest example of how small businesses everywhere are struggling to stay afloat. Less than five minutes away, Toñita’s – the Caribbean Social Club lovingly highlighted in Bad Bunny’s latest album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS – has similarly fought to survive gentrification in the neighborhood.
Buddies Coffee is located at 150 Grand Street in Brooklyn, New York.