Wednesday, July 22

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Hani's Bakery + Café logo
Hani's Bakery + Café

Coffee · 1 location · NYC: East Village

The viral PB&J cake and cult cookies come from a fully independent kitchen. Owners Miro and Shilpa Uskokovic, a former Gramercy Tavern pastry chef and a Bon Appétit editor, run it themselves with no outside investors, paying above minimum wage with real benefits for staff.

Genuinely Independent

Hani's is owned outright by the couple who built it (former Gramercy Tavern pastry chef Miro Uskokovic and Bon Appétit editor Shilpa Uskokovic), with no investors, franchise agreement, or parent company involved. Job listings put hourly pay at $16.50 to $18 an hour plus tips, and its front-of-house manager role at $70,000 to $75,000 a year, with a health and fitness stipend, staff meals, and paid time off layered on top. Its coffee comes from a Brooklyn micro-roaster paying above fair-trade rates and its tea from a direct-trade importer, not an anonymous distributor, and the business answers to the two people whose names are on the lease.

The Scores

Local ownership
10/10
Founder involvement
10/10
Worker pay & benefits
7/10
Environmental impact
6/10
Sourcing & labor
7/10
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