Pioneer coffee shop owner faces shut down
Baldwin downtown coffee shop Sweet and Savory Café faces closure after nine years if owner Antoinette Burrows can’t turn the tide this next year. “Before Covid we were steady,” Burrows said, now however, “personal money is going in… my savings, but I know at the end of the day I did everything I could do.” She urges the people of Baldwin to invest in their local businesses, especially downtown, which in turn will help revitalize Baldwin and the local economy as a whole.
Burrows opened her coffee shop Sweet and Savory Café in 2014 after deciding to leave the corporate finance sector and pursue a different course in life. Attending lectures, seminars, and coffee festivals, she took her knowledge from the events and what she could remember growing up in her chef grandmother’s kitchen and opened up shop. Wanting to benefit Baldwin as a Black female, she asked herself, “What can I give that outside what’s expected? What’s the norm?”
The café offers a selection of coffee, bubble tea, pastries, brunch foods, and international meals. Also Burrows puts on community events like teaching how to make floral arrangements and “Dining in the Dark,” which allows participants to be blindfolded and use their heightened senses to experience a five-course meal differently.
Burrows said she is the first Black woman owned coffee shop on Long Island, and that that fact may not be in her favor. “When I opened up the shop 80 percent white, 20 percent Black [people would come in], as we’ve now been here for a while, those numbers started to change,” she told the Herald. She added, “I feel wholeheartedly that it has a lot to do with people finding out the business is blacked owned.”
She said she’s had a few charged encounters, including one almost two years into operation where someone saw her behind the counter and, after finding out she was the owner, said to her, “We live in this town, and we don’t want that element coming here.” After Burrows asked for clarification, the customer responded, “The element of bad people…sometimes people follow what they know.” Burrows knew what she meant, but pretended she didn’t, trying to not let the comment bother her.
Burrows chalked the incident up to subconscious racism, “People generally go in groups they’re comfortable in…this town is really outside of the worlds comfort zone; you could never have this type of demographics anywhere.” The demographics in the area, however, are what Burrows appreciates about her town, being a resident for the last 19 years. “I love the diversity here, the demographics, the small-town feel, but…I don’t think everyone loves diversity… [the subconscious racism is] taboo to talk about.”
Starting her businesses knowing that tens of thousands of businesses in the food industry shut down each year, it didn’t matter because she wanted to provide a space for Baldwinites to make memories. She said, “My business is something I do for the community, for legacy, for moments of joy.”
Regardless of how her business fares, Burrows said, “No matter what, it was an experience, and you take what you learn and move on, go on to something else and keep growing, …to make life better, not just for me, but for others.”
Covid wasn’t only tough on her business, but on her family too, losing her father, two uncles and others. “I lost a lot of people, so for me I have to try to maneuver around it, but I’m not going to give up; I’ll try everything and anything till it works…I would just like to survive,” she concluded.
