Workers at Café Cerés and Colita Plan to Unionize

TWIN CITIES– Employees at restaurants owned by Daniel Del Prado, DDP Restaurant Group, have announced plans to unionize. 

Last Tuesday, 90 workers from Del Prado’s Colita, and Café Cerés– which has four locations– announced plans to organize with Unite Here Local 17, which represents more than 6,000 hospitality workers in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Workers are demanding “better working conditions,” including, “respect, stability, and better pay and benefits.”

A supermajority of workers from the restaurant group are calling on their employer to recognize the union. According to a press release, the supermajority includes “about 60 dishwashers, bartenders, cooks, and servers [who] work at Colita [and] about 30 baristas [who] work at the four Café Ceres locations across Minneapolis.”

In the same statement, Sara Zabinski, a server at Colita, explains, “I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years now, and I’ve gone from shop to shop. It always feels like the grass could be greener. But in reality, the problems are there in every shop you go to.” She continues,“I really want to make Colita my career. A real career! I don’t see why the service industry doesn’t deserve that.”

Daniel Del Prado, and his business partner Shawn McKenzie of Café Cerés, are not industry novices. Both were recently nominated for James Beard awards and DDP is widely regarded as one of the top restaurant groups in the Twin Cities.

“I don’t think we get enough training, and things that we need to do our jobs have been broken. If I don’t get tables, I don’t make money, I can’t pay rent. Management needs to make sure people are trained so we are all successful,” stated Silvia Jimenez, a server working at Colita.

Del Prado and the ownership team must now decide whether or not to recognize the union. If they decide against it, their workers will have the opportunity to vote on unionizing– a vote which will likely pass with supermajority support.