Community Café Told to Keep Selling Dairy or Close the Doors

A Change.org petition set up last week (August 30) has already received more than 15,000 votes of support for the local Mangawhai café.

After two years of successful operation and community involvement, a small Mangawhai café is being told by its landlords that it must either return to offering dairy milk on its menu or risk losing its lease renewal this October.

Cool Beans Café, based out of the Mangawhai Activity Zone (MAZ) skate park in Mangawhai , north of Auckland, decided in July this year to no longer offer animal products to its customers and instead took up the growing ethical and environmental challenge to support plant-based eating.

Owner Morgan Redfern-Hardisty made the announcement via the café’s Facebook page in early July and, with majority positive support, launched the new menu of plant-based smoothies, stacked toasties and muesli bowls on July 27th to overwhelming support from the community and fans around the country.

The MAZ committee, who operates the Mangawhai Activity Zone and leases a converted shipping container to Cool Beans Café, met in early July around Morgan’s plans to remove animal products from the menu and informed him they were not in favour of this change. However, with support from the public for his decision, Morgan pursued his menu change. After several weeks of successful trading by Cool Beans as a plant-based café, this week Morgan has been informed that if he is to be offered a new lease from October, he must put dairy back on the menu. This is not something he is willing to consider for himself or the planet.

“My decision to have a cruelty free establishment was not well received by everyone but honestly I was just trying to offer something a little different, a little progressive in alignment with a worldwide shift. I wanted to spread a little compassion and empower our youth to help make a better future,“ saysMorgan Redfern-Hardisty, owner operator of Cool Beans Café in Mangawhai.

“I will move forward into the unknown with nothing but hope for an ever changing and diversifying world,” Morgan says, as he considers his options for the future.

The idea of plant-based options and even whole plant-based cafes is nothing new, seeing many pop up and operate successfully in our major cities and even smaller towns around New Zealand. One of Cool Beans’ supporters and suppliers, Little Island, is surprised a community organisation looking to educate youth and support the environment would be shunning such as enterprise.

“Over the past five years Little Island has grown in leaps and bounds around the principles of plant based eating. We see more and more people wanting these options and so the idea of an organisation like MAZ looking to rob Mangawhai of such innovation is disheartening,” says Little Island co founder James Crow.

About Cool Beans Café:

Cool Beans is a 100% plant based container cafe located in the amazing community funded Mangwhai Activity Zone.

An above and beyond space for all walks of life to thrive and enjoy, from Aotearoa’s best skatebowls, flying fox, pirate ship, tennis, basketball, soccer playground, pump track, functional fitness, and always evolving. We are open three days a week, Friday to Sunday, brewing coffee from 9am and serving up Cool Beans creations until 5pm. From smoothie bowls, Nice Blocks and stacked toasties, to a wide range of plant milks to pair with locally roasted RUSH coffee, we only wish to give people an opportunity to try something new, exciting and to explore positive change with an open mind.

Cool Beans strives to source ethical ingredients we are proud to offer to the public. Our menu is free from animal products and we do our best to offer quantity and quality. We aim to inspire you to be conscious about what you put in your body without sacrificing on flavour and taste. To show the youth and old alike that healthy can taste amazing and it all starts with asking questions - this is why we are here.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

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