Kaldi's Coffee Workers Launch Boycott, Unveil Workers' Bill of Rights

Kaldi's Coffee workers packed a food service town hall at Washington University on March 3, announcing a boycott of the chain's newest location at Bauer Hall on campus and unveiling a Food Service Workers' Bill of Rights that organizers are circulating for signatures.

The boycott targets the Bauer Hall store specifically and will continue, workers say, until Kaldi's recognizes their union and negotiates. "Now we're boycotting the new Kaldi's on Wash U's campus until they recognize our union and come to the bargaining table," said Beuhler, a worker quoted at the event. "The restaurants are organized. They keep our wages down through the Chamber of Commerce and Missouri Restaurant Association. The Food Service Workers' Bill of Rights is how we organize and fight back. Every service worker in this city deserves to know: When we come together, we win."

The town hall, hosted by the Missouri Workers Center, drew Kaldi's workers alongside Starbucks workers and St. Louis community members. It came roughly six weeks after workers at the Skinker location voted seven-to-two in January to join UNITE HERE Local 74, making it the first Kaldi's location in the country to vote to organize. That victory is not yet settled: the National Labor Relations Board is reviewing several challenges and Unfair Labor Practices charges filed by workers and the union before issuing a ruling on the election's outcome.

The organizing campaign itself runs deeper than a single store. Baristas, bakers, and back-of-house kitchen staff from at least eight Kaldi's locations across the St. Louis area have been building toward this moment since the summer of 2025, publicly launching their union campaign in November of that year. Workers say the campaign has already delivered concrete results: raises, equipment repairs, and the preservation of paid sick days that Missouri legislators moved to eliminate when they gutted Proposition A in the 2025 legislative session. "Through organizing we've already won raises, equipment repairs, and kept the paid sick days lawmakers tried to take from us," Beuhler said.

The specific demands included in the restaurant workers' bill of rights were not available in full at the time of this report, though workers announced they are actively collecting signatures. With the NLRB review still pending and the Bauer Hall boycott now underway, the pressure campaign appears designed to force recognition through public and economic leverage while the legal process runs its course.