Café Est?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Even by Berkeley standards, Café Gratitude is considered hippy-dippy. The menu items are organic, vegan, and mostly raw, and ordered via affirmations like “I Am Beautiful,” “I Am Luscious,” and “I Am Sassy.” On my first visit there last week, I was offered a free algae shot and asked what nourished me the most that day (“Ummm…the food here was pretty nourishing,” was the best I could muster.)

So it wasn’t surprising to read in the East Bay Express that the café is connected to Landmark Education, the radical self-realization company recently profiled by Mother Jones.

When I ate there, I found traces of the Landmark Forum—a corporate descendant of the famed 70’s movement est (Erhard Seminar Training). The bookshelf by the front door was stocked with copies of The Secret, and a card at my table contained creeds such as “Look at your life and see what you say you ‘should’ or ‘have’ to do, that you don’t enjoy…Consider you are the one creating it as a ‘should’ or ‘have’ to.”

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with this—coconut water with a side of self-help never hurt anyone. But as the Express reports, the café discriminates against staff not on board with Landmark’s ways. It also requires managers to attend the introductory Landmark Forum and cough up half the $500 fee, and in at least one case, fired a manager who refused to do so.

And this is hard to stomach. If you’re going to endorse open-mindedness and acceptance, shouldn’t you be, well…open-minded and accepting?

Read Mother Jones‘ article on Landmark here.

Read the East Bay Express article about Café Gratitude here.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate