It’s been a rocky January for Portland coffee purveyor Ristretto Roasters. And judging by the company’s Monday night Twitter rant, its troubles are far from resolved.
The now-deleted tweets, the first posted by Ristretto Roaster since December, sought to smear a former employee for bringing attention to the company’s ties with a web series that attacks sexual assault survivors.
The Twitter rant starts with a jab at Heart Coffee Roasters—another Portland coffee company—one of many businesses that distanced itself from Ristretto after learning of the videos.
Ristretto then turns to Camila Coddou, the former Ristretto manager. She’s painfully characterized as “the little lady grinding her ax” in Ristretto’s tweets.
Coddou was the first to draw the public’s attention to Nancy Rommelmann, a journalist and spouse of Ristretto owner Din Johnson, for producing a web series that delegitimizes rape allegations and the enduring trauma that accompanies sexual assault.
Johnson disputes Rommelmann has anything to do with his business, but multiple Ristretto employees are under the impression by her involvement in the company that she’s their boss. Which is why, when they caught wind of Rommelmann’s YouTube series, thirty past and current employees sent a letter to Johnson demanding an explanation.
“Invalidating assault survivors throws into question the safety of Ristretto Roasters as a workplace and has the potential to create a demoralizing and hostile environment for employees and customers alike,” the letter, sent January 10, reads.
Coddou helped organize the staff letter and spoke with media outlets about the community’s concerns.
Johnson has yet to respond in a way that shows he understands his employee’s concerns, while Rommelmann has turned to her web series, dubbed “#MeNeither,” to eviscerate the complaints.
Rommelmann calls the public criticism of her show an anti-feminist attempt to get a husband to silence his wife for speaking out. It’s an easy excuse to avoid addressing the actual concern at the heart of this response: That a local business leader does not take allegations of sexual abuse seriously.
Ristretto Roasters echoed Rommelmann’s misguided interpretation of the public blowback via its Monday tweetstorm. It’s unclear who authored the tweets, but they’re The tweets, which we now know were penned by Rommelmann herself, show a short-sighted understanding of the real issue that’s inspired Portlanders to boycott the business.
The tweets clumsily mocked Coddou for going to an all-woman’s college (Smith), for wearing a Halloween costume that criticized the patriarchy, and for wanting Ristretto to host an event that supported people of color. Ristretto also minimized the public pushback to these videos as “outrage culture.”
It’s a cringe-inducing, unorganized attempt to smear the former employee for… being a woman who’s concerned for survivors of sexual assault working under someone who doubts rape allegations?
But, according to Ristretto’s tweets, her former employer just thinks she’s “trying to destroy a man’s business because her wife speaks her mind.”
“Nice feminism there, ladies!” the patronizing Twitter storm concludes. By morning, the tweets were deleted.
UPDATE: Rommelmann reached out to the Mercury Tuesday and confessed to being the author of last night’s tweets. “I was het up last night and stupidly (obviously) asked for the RR Twitter password. Believe me, our media guy is not happy,” writes Rommelmann in an email to the Mercury.
She went on: “To be clear, my husband owns the business. It’s a very small business, I helped him open it, and sat in on meetings, but I don’t anymore, geez, I was on book tour most of last year. I used to know everybody at RR but know very few now, which is why I think this was all able to make people fearful. They don’t know me, not more than the boss’s wife who sometimes comes in and grabs coffee. They hear these awful things, they have no real experience with me, and it’s off to the races.”
Wow. I was tempted to give Ristretto some benefit of the doubt because Rommelmann isn’t directly in charge, but she obviously has the keys to their twitter. This is all beyond the pale. Who publicly attacks their ex-employees for believing survivors? Luckily there are so many great coffee shops in Portland, no need to patronize this one any more!
It’s amazing how people like this shoot themselves in the face every time. If only they’d kept their mouths shut or, I don’t know, taken some time to think and self-reflect. Nope. Nothing but hateful, entitled bullshit. Good to know. Good luck motherfuckers, I hope your businesses crashes and burns, you absolutely deserve nothing less.
At this point they should probably find a buyer, before the business is worthless. With great privilege comes great responsibility and these people clearly aren’t up to the task.
“Het up” – Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Oh jeez. I agree that ‘call-out culture’ can be annoying, and Portlanders getting high and mighty about coffee and burritos is dumb. But on the other hand, this lady sounds like a coked up white supremacist. She should just go away forever so I can stop thinking about $15 bags of coffee that I’m never going to but anyway
“Het up.” It’s bad enough that everything she’s being accused of likely occurred, but this, right here, should be the end of it. We get it: You read the Guardian, saw Trainspotting, grabbed a BA fall fare from JFK to Gatwick, and wish Bill’s still sold Curly Wurlys. Also, we’re painfully aware of how Portland isn’t your “real” home and that the people here exist solely for your book ideas or disdain… or, in some cases, both! You’ve lived a life here that the plebes couldn’t understand, but the mean kids in Manhattan and Brooklyn are already tired of your bullshit and have heard your Libertarian dinner party screeds about nine times too often. It was all good here, so long as you could ignore the kids at hubby’s shop and keep giving interviews to Reason, but now you actually have to interact with people. In Portland! About “social justice.” It’s all so beneath you. Maybe it’s time to get that place in Friday Harbor and remove yourself from all of this. You can tell friends about the time you saw Chris Pratt at the Lime Kilns and host a summer signing at that cute little bookstore by the movie theater. People there will love you. They’ll APPRECIATE you, and they won’t find you a dull, fatuous, egocentric bore. Not like the unwashed neophytes here.
Thanks Merc for the continuing coverage. I have enjoyed Ristretto at their own cafes and other cafes who source them. I feel sad for their current and former employees.
I think Ristretto has two choices: either focus their business shipping to cafes across the country with views of the wife, or have the husband and wife owners step away from the business, replaced by new management, as did Uber.
Small businesses should be thankful for creative thinkers like Coddou. It’s an art to honor them, but not implement their every idea. It’s the art of managing millennials and gen z. Are the owners millennials? That would explain a lot.
Kind of ironic to suggest you have nothing to do with the business, after being given control of the company’s communications apparatus (ie Twitter).
“Writing on company letterhead, his wife denied any connection to the business.” LOL
Example of “keep digging” syndrome. Probably too late now for RR.
If he values his wife more than his business, I hope he realizes that they need to focus on improving their relationship and core viewpoints on human interaction, and the business is over. If he values the business more than his wife, I hope they split up peacefully, so that their own separate happinesses can be found.
Reporter: “Why don’t you just make 10 one dumber, and make that the dumbest?”
Rommelmann: “…mine goes to 11…”