Minneapolis restaurant workers at Colita, Café Ceres seek union recognition

Workers at Colita and the four Café Ceres locations told management on June 18 that they had supermajority support for joining UNITE HERE Local 17, pushing two Daniel del Prado restaurants into union drives centered on scheduling, pay and day-to-day voice on the job. The effort covered about 90 workers across the two brands, including roughly 30 baristas at Café Ceres, where the fight quickly moved to an election.

That election ended with Café Ceres baristas voting 88% in favor of unionizing. Management did not voluntarily recognize the unions, so the vote went forward under National Labor Relations Board supervision, turning what began as an organizing push into a formal workplace test of support. At Colita, workers also asked for recognition and contract negotiations, signaling they wanted bargaining rights rather than another round of promises about culture and communication.

The Colita and Café Ceres drives landed only weeks after workers at Kim’s, another Minneapolis restaurant group, publicly announced their own organizing effort. That sequence matters for restaurant workers who know how quickly staffing problems, uneven shifts and pay questions can spill from one service night into the next. In a business where cooks, servers, baristas and bartenders often absorb the same pressure with little control over the schedule or the pace, the appeal of a union is less about symbolism than about getting a say in the conditions that shape every shift.

Kim’s gave that organizing wave a sharper edge. Workers there later voted to unionize on June 27, then the restaurant announced it would close at the end of August. UNITE HERE Local 17 filed unfair labor practice charges against Vestalia Hospitality and Kim’s after the closure announcement, alleging anti-union conduct and accusing the company of shutting the restaurant without bargaining. For restaurant workers watching from other dining rooms and prep lines, the sequence underscored why some organizers are pushing for recognition before the next business decision comes down from above.

UNITE HERE Local 17 says it represents more than 6,000 hospitality workers in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and surrounding suburbs, giving the Colita and Café Ceres campaigns a broader regional backdrop. For operators with multiple locations, the lesson is direct: workers are organizing where the labor feels most fragile, and they are doing it around the basics of the job, not abstract labor politics. In the Twin Cities, that message is now moving from one restaurant group to the next.