For Next City, Oscar Perry Abello visits Boyfriend:

Boyfriend Co-op is just the second worker-owned co-op bar [Seed Commons member] The Working World has financed in New York, and the first startup bar or cafe, after the 2023 conversion of Donna Cocktail Club from a conventionally-owned business into a worker co-op.

“It’s cool to get to be in a space where you can bring your full self and every element of that because there is this understanding across the board from lender to customer and everything in between that this is the kind of space that we’re in,” worker-owner [Nat] Risk says. “We can be a queer space that is prioritizing high quality, that integrates so much Egyptian or Palestinian culture and it gets to be cozy and comfortable. We don’t have to compromise on any of those things because we’re trying to fit into someone else’s vision of what is profitable.”

Read more: https://nextcity.org/features/welcome-to-boyfriend-co-op-brooklyns-new-queer-coffee-shop-and-cocktail-bar (Oscar Perry Abello, Next City, April 1st, 2025)