Trumansburg Gimme! reopens for sidewalk service

At 7:30 a.m. this past Friday, Gimme! Coffee quietly reopened its Trumansburg location for sidewalk service for the first time since March.

The shop on Main Street chose not to announce its reopening that day, in hopes of keeping crowds down while working out first-day kinks. But by the end of the weekend, the word was out, and the small cafe welcomed back many of its loyal customers.

In addition to walk-up service, the shop is also offering the option to pre-order items online and pick up on site. Gimme! bakery director and frequent customer Kate Smith of Trumansburg tried out the new feature on Saturday and popped by the store with her young daughter, Sloane, to restart their long-missed tradition of grabbing a scone and coffee together every weekend.

“I love this ritual because it’s something Sloane and I get to do just the two of us,” Smith said. “It was a little different this time, as I ordered in advance on the website to save time and also ordered a half gallon of cold brew to keep at home since we don’t go out with Sloane much. But what a treat to have some normalcy. It was fun to see her get excited again since it’s been so long.”

The opening marks a bright spot for a company that’s experienced a lot of loss this year. On March 25, Gimme! Coffee management sent out a message to all seven cafe locations and 75 employees calling for what it thought would be a temporary shut down due to COVID.

Since then, Gimme!’s two New York City locations have shuttered for good, and only the State/MLK Street location in Ithaca has reopened for online ordering. In Ithaca, patrons can choose pickup or delivery service for their beverages and pastries but can’t order at the door. There are plans to open walk-up service at this location in the next few weeks.

The Trumansburg location is the first to open for walk-up service. Customers can order in person, but there’s no entry allowed into the cafe. Employees stand at a makeshift counter at the door to take orders while a barista runs the espresso machine in the back.

Employees seemed happy with the turnout this weekend, including former T-burg cafe manager Duncan Allen-Burns, who was on the scene helping to get things up and running.

“It went so well,” Allen-Burns said. “Cars were driving by and honking with people shouting ‘Gimme!’ Some old faces came out and thanked us for coming back, but to me, it’s absolutely mutually beneficial. It was really nice.”

Gimme! also debuted a new customer-facing POS system this weekend in order to cut down on the risk of virus spread for employees. The screen is sanitized between each transaction, and this system allows an employee to stand 6 feet from the patron while taking an order. Gimme! CEO Colleen Anunu said that the safety of the staff has been their biggest concern while planning for reopening.

“We’ve been working for the last few months to monitor all the new rules from the CDC, county health department and governor, making sure we are more than compliant,” Anunu said. “We’ve also been talking with the staff that’s currently laid off to ensure they are comfortable coming back to work.”

Both the Ithaca and T-burg cafes have been reconfigured to allow for distance between workers, and everyone must wear a mask and gloves. There are new sanitation procedures for making drinks and for cleaning surfaces.

Anunu said that each shift is handled by a specific team — with no overlap in teams — so that if one employee comes in contact with the virus, the entire staff doesn’t have to quarantine. Anunu said they are glad to be able to open a second store with proper safety precautions.

“Not a day went by that we didn’t get an email, a call, a comment on social media about ‘when is Trumansburg going to reopen?’” Anunu said.

Though there are now two locations open (with the Community Corners location slated to open sometime in September), service at each is still quite different. For the Ithaca location, Gimme! very quickly created an online ordering system to allow for pickup and delivery. According to Anunu, there have been many challenges with the system, and the company is currently looking into creating its own app.

“It’s a little clunky. We will definitely admit to that,” Anunu said. “It’s obviously not the same as coming in and talking with a barista, sitting down with a ceramic cup.”

Anunu worked at Gimme! from 2004 to 2014 as a barista, manager, roaster and finally head coffee buyer. They came back to Gimme! in January 2020 in the midst of a massive management and cultural shift, with tensions running high between leadership and the union that some Gimme! employees are in. Anunu said they have since worked to center the needs of the workers.

“One of the reasons I came back to Gimme! and took this job is because I thought we needed to make it a more welcoming environment for staff, customers and the entire community,” Anunu said. “It used to be ‘Let’s have a coffee shop for coffee’s sake.’ But now, it’s like, ‘Let’s use coffee as a platform for human development.’”

Allen-Burns has been working in the State/MLK Street location in Ithaca for the past five months and said that his team meets twice a week to discuss what’s going right and what’s going wrong at that store. He also got to be part of the conversation and plans on reopening the T-burg location.

“Management has made it very apparent to us that we are a priority,” Allen-Burns said. “I think we did it the right way. We definitely didn’t do it as fast as people wanted us to, but so much care and precaution has gone into making sure the customers and staff are safe. I’m thrilled at the work we’ve done. It›s been a whole team effort.”

While Gimme! has been busy changing systems in their local cafes, customers near and far have stepped up to support the beloved coffee business, mitigating some of the revenue loss the company has sustained this year. Anunu said that almost overnight online coffee bean sales grew 200 to 400%, depending on the week.

Though public demand for Gimme! is high, Anunu said that they don’t plan to open their in-cafe seating until 2021. Until then, residents can enjoy sidewalk service every day from 7:30 to 11 a.m. and noon to 3 p.m. at the Trumansburg location.

“It warms my heart that we’re able to reopen,” Allen-Burns said. “Nobody knew what was going to happen. There was a time there where we didn’t know if we were going to reopen any shops. I’m so happy to come back to this community and give these people coffee.”