Team Brooklyn Warehouse (2795 Windsor Street) knows a thing or two about crowdfunding. Remember last year when they raised over $20,000 in two months, helping them to build a sweet new front room/patio? That was pretty clear evidence of how possible it is to get by with a little help from your friends, supporters and hungry customers and remain free of debt.
Today, the north end resto announced they’re back at it. Taking some inspiration the successful patio project and Barack Obama’s crazy crowdfunding capabilities that have raised millions and millions via small donations, Brooklyn Warehouse is looking to you, the people, to help achieve the goal of a kitchen makeover. The campaign, AKA The Kitchen Crowd, looks to raise $1,000 a day for the month of February to end up with $28,000 and another great upgrade for the five-year-old restaurant. Potential donors, there’s more to this than good karma. Depending on how much you decide to fork over, there are rewards for your support (t-shirts, lunches, dinners and more). If you want to put some money where your mouth is (or, where your mouth yearns to be) check out The Kitchen Crowd.
ALSO, the fun doesn’t stop there. Starting on February 18, Brooklyn Warehouse will join forces with resto on wheels Nomad Gourmet and do it street food-style for two weeks while its kitchen gets that overhaul mentioned above. A special street food menu, prepared by Brooklyn’s kitchen crew, with the Nomad’s (Nick Horne) gear, that you can enjoy in the comfort of a warm restaurant? This is too much goodness to process on a Friday. Check out the menu here.
Related Stories
Brooklyn and North team up for Battery Park
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2013.
Isn’t this sort of thing what profit from the business is for? This is a successful restaurant – why is the charity needed?
The first time it was a neat idea, but asking the customers (who already pay $25+ a plate) for money again…
I enjoy the food, but the menu prices have already gone above the point in which I can make the spot more than a special occasion event. Maybe I am no longer their target market, that is fair, but asking for $1,000 a day (that is the BW goal) from the community for a restaurant… come on, this isn’t some not for profit ‘good cause’.
I love the Brooklyn Warehouse. The food there is so freakin’ good and their marketing and connection to patrons innovative and fun. I have a friend who works at another of the gourmet restaurants in town, and I was shocked to learn that chefs make way less an hour than most professions because they work such incredibly long hours in order to keep a resto going. Great cookery is a labour of love, and like any great art form (Opera, theatre, etc..) it is way more work to conceive of, create and deliver to table than the average restaurant goer may realize. Its all incredibly expensive to create. My sense is that bringing BW to the next level of culinary abilities will help to put Halifax on the map for its restaurant culture and be good for the economy overall. I wish them well in this crowdfunding and look forward to getting a t-shirt or some such!! (p.s. and no, I do not know them personally, I just felt moved to write this after the catty comment I saw posted above)
I agree with you silenceoftheyams…. That’s part of why you make profits, no? To continue to improve and grow your restaurant? If you aren’t making a profit, perhaps that’s the question you need to be asking yourself. If you have made a profit, then why are you asking the people who have helped you make that profit, for more money?
It just seems a little cheeky to do this a second time. First time people are willing to help out, second time…..I’m not so sure. As mentioned, it’s not a non-profit org that continuously needs help. It’s a business, that is supposed to be making money. If you’re not, figure out what you’re doing wrong and try harder….
As an ex chef I agree with Ann Denny… the view of most restaurant owners in NS is that kitchen staff is completely expendable and they are paid such. I worked in Montreal and every member of the kitchen staff got a cut of the kitchen profits (including the dish washer).
Why? Because every member in the kitchen was KEY to the success of the restaurant!!! No plate went out that everyone was something we all took pride in, and it showed both in the quality of food and the level of patronage we received.
All that being said asking for others to pay for your reno’s doesn’t make me very confident about the future of this restaurant, BUT hey if you can get people to do it why not?
I’d never give this place a dime. Why? On two separate occasions I visited this place, was asked if I’d like to order a drink and did so, then once the drink was poured and delivered to the table, opted not to order food and was told AT THAT POINT that they don’t have a license to sell alcohol only and that I had to order food. I felt incredibly misled, and it felt like a slimy business tactic on their part. If there hadn’t been nearly 2 years between visits I would have figured it was an isolated incident. As it is, I’ll never go there again, even if I want food, as I now know how dishonest and greedy they are.
I’m really interested in internet crowdfunding, since its such a new social economic format, so its great to watch people’s reactions on this. I see people who are against it in this thread are into the “one time to launch something” idea, maybe that will emerge as an etiquette or norm in the business world.
I’m also interested in where business and social enterprise and charity intersect, an emerging set of concepts around the world. I just started a non-profit with my husband last year, but there will be a portion of the non-profit that is supporting the next generation of young creatives to become “artist entrepreneurs”, i.e. helping them build stable careers, which requires a lot of coaching and support (including donated money, even though the eventual aim is profitability for these youth) at first. So I’m into actively exploring how non-profit and profit can actually overlap in new ways.
Supporting “artist entrepreneurs” is an idea brought forward by Mme. Michaelle Jean, our former Governor General in her new foundation. I’m inspired by her vision of how art literally changes lives for youth. I was drawn to Brooklyn Warehouse’s story when I became aware that the head chef is so unusually young, i.e. not completely established yet. In any case, whether you like the pacing of this particular business in their usage of crowdfunding and/or the narrative they brought forward to ask for that funding or not, for me these disagreements point to how its a bit confusing at the moment because a strict divide between for and non-profit is becoming outdated. That segmenting into biz and charity categories may be part of what leads to some of our economic turmoil because corporations are not grounded enough in social purpose and our non-profits are not economically savvy enough.
Since I havn’t yet done my own crowdfunding, but hope to do many many campaigns for various distinct projects over the course of the existence of the non-profit that I run, I am interested in the ideas and comments of Coast readers regarding the awesomests ways to do such things!!!