Confessional was founded by three coffee and pastry professionals with a combined 20 years of café experience and with the desire to help the coffee industry grow toward a more equitable future. Our company exists first and foremost to empower our workers to live well, to treat our customers with generosity, and to care for our shared world through exceptional creativity and quality in our work. Our core values of excellence, sustainability, and equity drive both the model of our business and each decision we make in crafting our products. Moreover, we hold that the opportunity to conduct business as a group of workers is not an occasion to accumulate wealth for a few of our partners or other outside interests, but to generate and mobilize income for all of our workers.

This is why we at Confessional will be proud to offer a wage that is generally considered to be above the industry standard to all of our workers, and we are committed to work toward becoming a worker cooperative in the coming years as profitability and the number of eligible staff increase to make this a viable structure for our business. We are striving to grow our company in ways that offer the less tangible–though nonetheless vital–service of enacting well-being for our partners, providing a source of sustainable financial stability and personal fulfillment in work and in life. With the strong foundation of partner well-being and stability, we believe that we are able to better achieve our more customer-facing goals as a business: producing exceptional coffee and pastries, and providing a space for our patrons to enjoy them in an environment that facilitates connection and focus. When workers are confident and proud of their workplace, they will be able to provide knowledge, expertise, and hospitality to everyone who walks through the door. As such, we have spared no time or expense in dreaming about and building our business to maximize our partners’ compensation in pursuit of their passion.