Thomas Breen photo
Inside Shiru Cafe on College Street.
An experimental downtown cafe has decided to serve all customers, not just college students, in a reversal of its previously exclusionary business model.
Shiru Cafe announced that change in a press release Tuesday.
The cafe, founded in Japan in 2013, opened a local outlet at 174 College St. in May. It has two other American locations: in Amherst, Mass., and in Providence, R.I.
Up until Tuesday, the cafe only opened its doors to college students, staff, and faculty with valid college IDs. Students had to sign into a Shiru Cafe verified network, and then would receive complementary coffee and discounted pastries in exchange for sharing personal information with potential employers who partnered with the cafe company.
Shiru staff pitched the business model as beneficial to college students looking to get direct access to a future employers. Critics accused the company of harvesting student data and of creating a segregated cafe culture by deliberately excluding high school students and all other community members from even entering the cafe, let alone purchasing coffee and baked goods.
Click here to read a previous story about the cafe’s opening, and here about a local bakery that pulled its baklava from the stores shelves after learning that the refugee chefs it works with would not be allowed to buy their own product at the cafe.
“At Shiru Café, we are here to help students connect with potential employers – we do this in a welcoming café environment,” the cafe’s CEO Yuliy Kakimoto is quoted as saying in Tuesday’s press release. “It makes perfect sense for us to extend this welcome to the communities where we’re based, especially because my inspiration for Shiru Café came from the community connections I was fortunate to have during my university career. We believe our cafes are exceptional for the quality of the experience – we’re glad to share this more widely.”
See below for the cafe’s full press release announcing the change to its business model. Click on the video below to watch the local store’s manager and spokesperson describe the cafe’s business model in May.
Shiru Café, an innovative new networking concept aimed at connecting college students with employers, announced today (June 18, 2019) that its cafes are now open to the general public. Shiru Cafes are located in Amherst, MA, New Haven, CT and Providence, RI. The services Shiru Café provides to college, graduate students, companies and nonprofits will not change.
“At Shiru Café, we are here to help students connect with potential employers – we do this in a welcoming café environment. It makes perfect sense for us to extend this welcome to the communities where we’re based, especially because my inspiration for Shiru Café came from the community connections I was fortunate to have during my university career. We believe our cafes are exceptional for the quality of the experience – we’re glad to share this more widely,” said Shiru Café CEO Yuliy Kakimoto.
To take advantage of potential employer connections through Shiru Café, higher education students can choose to log in to an app to register for events and learn about employers they can meet through Shiru Café. The voluntary app also provides these students discounted pricing on café drinks.
“At Shiru Café, we see a different answer to student recruitment, centered on students and employers generating meaningful connections. We provide our employer partners with great opportunities to connect with interested students — everything from hackathons to small-group meetings. Employers also make the most of marketing opportunities within the café, such as displaying multimedia content in the cafes or advertising on the app,” said Isabel Strobing, VP of Client Services. “Everything we do with our employer partners is focused on creating more meaningful conversations about a student’s future.”
Commenting on the opening up of the Shiru Café experience to the public, employer partner Loni Lymus, CEO & President of the veteran nonprofit organization, Service After Service based in Shelton, CT, said, “We are deeply appreciative of the opportunities that we receive from our partnership with Shiru Café. Their set-up allows us to share information about our platform, which works to empower veterans to get back out into their communities to lead programs and projects. We have already heard from numerous students that found us through the Shiru Café app and now, having access to the general public, opens up even more opportunities for us to engage with communities.”
Shiru Café has three locations in New England presently: Amherst, MA; New Haven, CT; Providence, RI. Summer hours are currently in operation from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday to Friday.
About ENRISSION/Shiru Café USA
Founded in 2013 in Kyoto, Japan, ENRISSION seeks to broaden the futures of students across the world. Its mission is to create a place that makes it easier for students to envision their future career and connect with the professional world. They are the parent company of Shiru Café, a chain cafe with over 25 locations worldwide that includes 17 in Japan, five in India and three in the United States.