About this project

Last year, your support helped us keep Laurel, FAB’s secret weapon. As a result Laurel helped FAB assist more than 60 artists and arts groups in 2010 .

This year, we need you to lend a hand in re-opening the café on East 4th Street that has for years served as a vital community gathering space for artists, theater-goers, and neighbors. The space will re-open its doors this December as the FAB Café & East Village Visitors’ Center joining two of FAB’s favorite things – a great cup of coffee and the chance to speak with people about cultural events in the East Village.

Why is this café special?

There are four reasons that this café is special and needs your support:

1) This café is a hub for the arts. In its previous incarnation, this space served as a meeting place and an affordable spot for artists working in the East 4th Street Cultural District to grab a bite to eat. Full to the rafters with directors, actors, designers, administrators, and audience members this café was sorely missed as soon as it closed, leaving the dozens of theater & dance companies and audiences with no common space to congregate. When the cafe re-opens it will not only be a gathering space, but it will be run by artists to support their work.

2) The East Village needs a visitors’ center! A dense neighborhood with a rich past and present, the East Village is one of the few neighborhoods in NYC without a visitor’s center. The knowledgeable staff of locals working in the café will be able to provide deeper insights and recommendations to not only tourists venturing to the neighborhood for the first time, but locals who want to try something new, or get more involved.

3) We set a record in opening this cafe. FAB has literally set a New York City record in the amount of time from when we decided to take on this project to when we were inspected by the Department of Health and received the okay to open. While most Kickstarters encourage you to fund a project that hasn’t happened yet, we realized the pressing need for this café to be open and serving the community NOW, even with limited capacity. When we start serving steaming coffee in the coming week your support will help get us to our grand opening in January.

4) This café supports FAB. As a non-profit, FAB is supported by grants, the generosity of individuals, and foundations. We hope that in the future the income from FAB Café will be another leg of financial support that FAB can stand on as we continue to expand our programs & services.

What is my money actually funding?

Cups! Coffee makers! Carpenters! And paint, lots and lots of paint. FAB needs funds that will allow us to finish revamping the space to make it functional and inviting, to get our starter coffee making supplies, and to pay the staff that has toiled endlessly in the past month to get FAB Café up and running in record time. We want FAB Café to not only be a gathering spot for artists but for it to be an affordable, sustainable café for the community – your support will help us keep coffee prices low and coffee satisfaction high!