Help Parable Secure Our First Home

To our Friends and Family,

In June 2022, we will be moving from Comune into a new space in downtown Columbus. The service industry and corporate retail markets are highly volatile; we must make this move with care and urgency. So we are asking for our community's help to make this move as sustainable as possible. As well as one that reflects all the possibilities and opportunities we have in store. We will be raising funds to design, demo, equip, and staff to the standard of quality you all have known and loved since the beginning of Parable.

Parable has become synonymous with community in its small but humble beginning. Although we have only been operating for under two years, we’ve received international recognition, being voted into the finals for "best new" cafe on spruge. Starting a cafe model that is employee and community-centered is what we believe makes our model sustainable and a space that cultivates and supplants a healthy dynamic between business and the people it aims to serve.

To give some context to how we believe Parable came to be such a cultural gathering place in such a seemingly short amount of time, we have over 20 years of combined experience in the service industry. We have collectively been working in Columbus’ coffee scene for a decade, and we are trusted and active community members. People look to us as not only the vanguard of the service industry but the innovators of its new frontier.

We are a Black and Queer owned business that operates as Columbus’ first and only gratuity-free cafe. We are trying to see the change and be the change we wish to see in this industry. One that is wrought with low wages, turnover, and burnout.

We believe that creating systems at the foundational level to help our employees flourish combat all of the problems we see in the industry. We are building a culture of care and support, and each hand washes the other. Parable aims to be a place where people can be seen and feel safe, and we think that’s what downtown Columbus needs more of, so we want to be an exemplar of those principles.

It's almost been two years since we began what we thought would be a tiny coffee pop-up. That pop-up has turned into a community of love and support, one that we feel we've grown and cultivated through our service not only to you all but to our employees as well. The time has come for us to move out of our little beginning and create a new permanent home for Parable!