This Just In

Anticapitalism

Populist coffee + gelato

By JOSH SCHLESINGER | June 21, 2006

A well-heeled, well-groomed barista is usually the province of the corporate coffee chains. (The local folk are just a little looser, rough-around-the-edges in a friendly sort of way.) But at The Others in Monument Square, you can get lefty coffee from a stockbroker dressed in business-casual, or cool off in summer’s heat with a gelato, a cold Italian dessert.

Brad McCurtain, a broker at Maine Securities Corporation, says the shop is his “experiment in capitalism,” just downstairs from his trading office, where, among other things, he tries to dig up dirt on companies he thinks are treating people wrong. Think Robin Hood.

McCurtain acts like Sherwood’s most famous denizen by donating 10 percent of the shop’s monthly income or $500 (whichever amount is higher) to the charity chosen by customers on write-in ballots. The coffee is fair trade, the baked goods are local, the tea is organic, and the employees are a merry band as diverse as single moms and recovering alcoholics, folks McCurtain helps out with a little extra income.

This is not your standard spiritual man whose stringy gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail while prancing around in Birkenstocks and splashing around in patchouli. “Business isn’t all about greed as it is helping people,” he says. “You can make a difference with something as small as a cup of coffee.”