Customer David Sawyer walked up the steps of the Hampden liquor store Tuesday and asked a cashier the question on everyone’s mind: “Are you guys a co-op yet?”
As of this week, the answer is yes. The Wine Source, which was put on the market in March by founder David Wells, has sold to its workers and will transition to a cooperative model. Wells will continue to own the building and the neighboring parking lot, said Caitlin O’Connor, one of the nine new worker-owners.
When the liquor store first hit the market in March, staffers worried that a new owner would lower wages and take away benefits like health care and paid time off. “We were very concerned about protecting what David Wells has provided,” said JoAnne Huey, who has worked at the shop for 12 years.
Shoppers had similar fears, O’Connor said. “We would hear the same thing from the customers: ‘Oh, do you know what’s going on with the store? You know, we hope it doesn’t change.’” People often refer to the shop, first opened 24 years ago and known almost as much for its abundant selection of cheese as for its wine, as their happy place.
O’Connor said she first floated the idea of a co-op as soon as Wells listed the property. She proposed it almost as a joke, in the sense that none of them had millions of dollars stored away in a vault somewhere. But it was serious in that she and other longtime employees have been closely involved with running the store for years.
Still, there was the money question. “I wasn’t really sure how we would go about buying it,” O’Connor said.
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Then BRED, the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy, stepped in. The group formed by Red Emma’s co-founder Kate Khatib has helped half a dozen other businesses in Baltimore make the switch to worker-ownership, including the nearby Common Ground coffee shop, which initially closed down until workers purchased it.
After an initial intake session with BRED, staff began learning everything they could about buying a business and what it would take to convert to a co-op.
“We said when we started this process, ‘Let’s just keep going till we hear ‘no,’” O’Connor said. “And we heard ‘no’ a couple times, and then didn’t stop anyway.”
They got a loan to buy the business from BRED with support from Seed Commons, a New York-based nonprofit that Khatib also directs. The group “soup-to-nuts helped us with every step of this process,” O’Connor said. The new owners are not disclosing the price they paid or how much the loan was for.
While the worker-ownership model isn’t always successful — Joe Squared in Station North closed down last year after transitioning to a cooperative in a bid to save the restaurant — advocates like Khatib say worker-owned businesses are more economically sound and sustainable than others. When the majority of the staff members understand how the business runs, they can make better decisions in their day-to-day work. Additionally, profits are shared across the worker-owners, which in turn means higher wages.
Wells declined to comment on the sale, saying in an email that he “would rather the focus be on the new group and their future plans.” But O’Connor said the former owner was “very excited” at the closing of the sale this week. Like customers and staff, he, too, had been nervous about the shop’s future in the hands of a new owner.
“He would throw out the word ‘legacy,’” O’Connor said. “He built the store from the ground up. The last thing you want to do is walk away and see somebody just turn it into something completely different.”
Wells confirmed he is planning on moving forward with plans to demolish two duplexes across the street to create a second parking lot for the shop once he receives the OK from the city. For now, customers can still use the Wine Source lot that is already across the street through the end of the year. Staff haven’t decided what will happen with the parking situation after that.
While the new owners have ideas on things they want to improve, including offering expanded wine tasting classes at the shop, the goal is to keep things pretty much the same, particularly as they head into the busy fall and holiday season. “This is already such a huge transition,” O’Connor said.
Though some breweries and alcohol purveyors have faced a drop in business in recent years due to lower rates of drinking, “We’re doing pretty well” as a business, said Phil Romero, who is also a worker-owner. He’s worked hard to adapt the store’s offerings to suit changing tastes, including an expansive section of nonalcoholic beverages.
Wine Source employees have been working so hard to close the deal that there hasn’t been much time to bust out champagne yet. But Huey said if time allows, “I would celebrate with bubbles” — specifically Billecart-Salmon Brut, a personal favorite. For O’Connor? “A shot of tequila sounds pretty good.”
