Gainesville Business Journal Highlights Florida Cooperatives

The Gainesville Business Report has an article on the thriving cooperative movement in the "eclectic" university town in North Central Florida, including the worker-owned restaurant Civilization.    Gainesville’s...

The Gainesville Business Report has an article on the thriving cooperative movement in the “eclectic” university town in North Central Florida, including the worker-owned restaurant Civilization. 

 

Gainesville’s eclectic culture has spawned several co-operative businesses in recent years, providing the community with access to good food and great art, creating great places to gather and giving members pride of ownership…

 

…Prosser was intent upon operating a business in which the workers were the owners when he bought Terranova Catering three years ago. He was buoyed by the availability of top-notch staff with whom he had worked at the Paramount Grill and other restaurants.  There was a catch. Most of the workers he started with didn’t get it, Prosser says. “They couldn’t get used to a different way of doing things. Democracy can be frustrating.”

 

Fortunately, Prosser and his wife, Ann Murray, have found an ample supply of workers, many of them artists, who embrace the idea of becoming part of a worker-owned cooperative as he expanded Terranova and started Civilization restaurant, Prosser says.  In addition to the 10 owners-workers, Civilization has 15 other workers, most of whom are interested in making the $1,000 commitment—which can be paid over time—to become owners, Murray says.  Among those involved is Caroline Hines, one of the few original staff who has remained with the business. Hines, who manages the catering business, says being an owner makes people like their jobs better  “It makes you responsible and aware of what needs to be done,” she says. “If I see that the plants need to be watered, I water them. If I see that the mat needs to be swept, I sweep it.”

 

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