#boycottbluecat

[defendourhoodz]

Austin Humane Society Cuts Ties with Blue Cat Cafe - Statement by Defend Our Hoodz - Defiende El Barrio - Austin

We are happy to announce, only a few months after Blue Cat Cafe owner Rebecca Gray asked men with Nazi affiliations, including her brother, to defend her business against our community picket, the business has now lost its main source of adoptable pets. Austin Humane Society announced Thursday that the organization would be ending its partnership with the controversial shelter. We thank our supporters, online and on the ground, who have dedicated themselves to this struggle, without whom this would not be possible.

This was a direct result of our group’s campaign over the past week to alert AHS of Blue Cat’s dubious role in the community. On October 17th, on the cafe's two year anniversary of being in business, the Austin Humane Society (AHS) posted about one of their cats housed at Blue Cat Cafe. This was three days after Defend our Hoodz and community members held a picket there. Through social media, our supporters shared dozens of customer reviews describing animal neglect, as well as former employee testimonials of hostile work environments and unpaid wages. After an escalation to an email campaign, the Austin Humane Society responded through their facebook page.

“We are truly saddened by the current neighborhood conflict. The conflict has nothing to do with AHS and is not good for animal welfare in an animal-loving city. In the best interest of the animals, we do not feel that during this neighborhood battle that it is the best environment for our cats to find the loving homes they deserve, and therefore, we are going to step aside while the involved parties resolve their issues.”

While we commend AHS for ending this relationship, it’s a mischaracterization to reduce it to a ‘neighborhood battle’. All parts of Austin have watched and supported this struggle to hold Blue Cat Cafe and its landlords accountable for their roles in violent gentrification. As many know, Blue Cat Cafe crossed a community picket line against landlords who demolished the Jumpolin piñata store in February 2015. Blue Cat Cafe responded by calling us ‘terrorists’, courting the support of the Infowars community, and inviting nazis, which included the owner’s brother Paul Gray, to provide security and attack our legal picket lines. With AHS promoting the cafe on Facebook, we sought to alert them to the countless customer and employee reports of animal neglect and employee mistreatment at this business. We hoped at minimum, AHS would be concerned with the reported living conditions of the cats adopted in their name, and end their partnership with Blue Cat Cafe.

One recent Google review stated: 

“Some of the cats were pretty sick which was sad :-( One of the kittens had uncontrollable diarrhea and was leaving a trail of liquid feces wherever she walked... I was pretty unhappy about the level of care the cats seemed to be getting.”

Google and Yelp reviews reveal reports of animals brought home with fleas, worms, Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), incorrect owner microchips, and more. Employees reported their attempts to adequately care for the cats were hindered by poor management. Employees claimed they were forced to pay for food and other items out of their own pockets. In addition, they reported wage irregularities and final paychecks that never arrived.

A former employee shared:

“Behind the cute cats, crazy artwork, and “family fun” atmosphere I got yelled at, cheated, and duped along with many other great employees who I hope have found better work.”

More screenshots and links to customer and employee testimonies can be found on our facebook page.

The issues of animal neglect and employee exploitation at Blue Cat Cafe should not be ignored, but what is most glaring is the blatant white supremacy that Rebecca Gray called upon to maintain her business in a historically Mexican-American barrio.

Rebecca invited her brother, Paul Gray, and his gang of fellow white supremacists, to attack our organization and supporters at our picket line in June of this year. After our supporters defended themselves, within their right, Paul Gray's crowd called the cops who violently interrupted our picket, tazed a supporter twice and issued bogus charges on our supporters. The neo-nazis aligned with Blue Cat Cafe that day have ties to the recent events Charlottesville and the attack on the Houston Anarchist Bookfair. Nearly all of them, including Paul Gray, have ties to William Fears, one of the men recently arrested in Gainesville, Florida for shooting at anti-racist protesters after Richard Spencer’s speech.

It should be clear that any animal organization seeking to partner with Blue Cat Cafe will face the same pressure, and we will be on guard. This major blow to Blue Cat Cafe should also be a warning to the forces of gentrification - the landlords, the developers, real estate investors, the chambers of commerce etc… - as a whole. The era of using trendy cafes, bars, restaurants, and galleries to brand working-class communities as ‘artsy’ and ‘up-and-coming,’ in order to entice speculation and development, is losing steam. Across the country, we are learning how to fight your tools and will only get stronger. Our resistance is ‘up-and-coming’ and we will continue to fight for our hoods and barrios against the forces of oppression and exploitation, whether they hide behind cute kitties or not.

[defendourhoodz]

Blue Cat Cafe CLOSED - The Boycott On the Property Remains!

Defend Our Hoodz is proud to announce, after three years of hard-fought struggle, the boycott against Blue Cat Cafe is victorious and the gentrifying, white supremacist hub is now closed for good. A moving truck was seen removing the last of their things yesterday, Feb. 4, 2019. We're told that they've had irregular hours for months and are no longer able to pay their rent.

Now that they are shut down, we continue to uphold the boycott against the landlords, Jordan French and  Darius Fisher (also known as F&F), who violently demolished the Jumpolin Piñata store in February 2015.

Any business attempting to lease the space will face the same fierce boycott we have held against Blue Cat that has led to their closing.

From Blue Cat's opening day in October 2015, until now, we've maintained a militant boycott. The demand three years ago was to not provide F&F rent money because of their demolition of the Jumpolin pinata store. When Rebecca Gray, the owner of Blue Cat, ignored this demand, we pursued a strategy of direct action, to make Blue Cat so unprofitable that they couldn’t afford to pay F&F.

For all those who have stood with us, and seen through the lies, the distortions of gentrifiers, and even attacks from supposed community leaders about our organizing and group, we thank you immensely for your support. This victory is yours as well, especially if you have ever joined us on the picket line or spread the word about the boycott of Blue Cat Cafe.

For anyone who defends gentrification, Blue Cat Cafe, the scumbag landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher, and ignores Blue Cat’s alliance with nazis and trump supporters, ignores their countless customer reviews of animal neglect and poor sanitation, and denies their employee testimonials of abusive management and wage theft - you stand with all of the racism and exploitation that the landlords, Blue Cat, and their white supremacist allies have carried out.

If Blue Cat Cafe and Rebecca Gray, ever deserved empathy (which they didn’t), she gave up any supposed high ground when she invited her Nazi brother and his fellow fascists to organize a picket-busting gang to attack us. Those who attack us and defend her are directly on the side of exploitation and white supremacy, and today, your side lost the battle.

Some may claim that we didn’t have anything do with their closing, and it wasn’t our tactics that won this. This is pure fantasy. Blue Cat Cafe is leaving because they couldn’t withstand the unified force of people militantly holding them accountable. We made her Gentrification project unprofitable.

The fact is, if a cat cafe were to be successful anywhere, it would be Austin, where the dominant, mostly white, liberal ruling-class is notorious for valuing animal life over Black, Chicano, Immigrant, and working class people. We are an animal-obsessed city, and for as long as Blue Cat has existed, people have used the cats as a shield for the actions of Blue Cat Cafe, F&F, and the Nazis themselves. The landlords knew what they were doing by leasing to Blue Cat - they are also in the PR game. They thought cute cats would get people to shut up.

But, it was our resolve and principled struggle against Blue Cat Cafe that has led to this outcome, not the same tired paths of those who want to surrender at the first sign of a long and difficult fight, especially one that will not build political careers or bring in non-profit funding.

Blue Cat Cafe started their first day of business crossing a community boycott against the landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher. Blue Cat Owner Rebecca Gray thought she knew better than the community and those saying to decrease the profit from the site after F&F violently demolished the Jumpolin Piñata Store. She was notified multiple times, asked by the Jumpolin family and the barrio not to move in, but she ignored their calls. For this, Blue Cat was picketed on its opening day, and on a regular basis ever since.

Those first pickets were tame - but Rebecca Gray consistently escalated things. Our pickets would stay on the sidewalk, but she would insert herself into our picket, bumping into us, and like a soccer player taking a dive, fake that we pushed her. She would get in people’s faces, like the entitled middle-class business owner that she is, and try to argue with us, when we had made it clear that the only thing to discuss was if she would close her business.

Our resolve caused her to grow more and more unhinged each time she encountered us. At one picket, she came out to the picket line drunk, and proceeded to roll around on the ground, making lewd gestures that disturbed those of us there.

We have known that Rebecca is a alcoholic and has multiple DWIs. While racists and ignorant people claim that working-class people in the barrio are drug-users and don’t deserve to keep their communities because they are irresponsible - the owner of Blue Cat Cafe was a dangerous alcoholic who drives with a suspended license, endangering others in the community. This is the blatant hypocrisy of gentrifiers and small business owners (of all backgrounds) who believe they are harder working or more noble than those who don’t own a business. The fact is that Rebecca needs professional help and has no place operating a small business.

Over time, numerous customer and employee reports began to emerge of animal neglect and employee mistreatment. Kittens were adopted out with diseases. Liquid Feces would be left on the floor and employees would pay for animal care out of their own pockets. Employees also reported wage theft and abusive treatment from Rebecca.

Our struggle escalated when Rebecca accused our organization of an incident that occurred in October 2016. Someone tagged the building and glued the locks shut. We don’t know who did this, yet Rebecca clearly implied it was us to the Austin-American Statesman, who never contacted us for comment.Because of this sloppy reporting, Alex Jones of Infowars himself picked up the story, and began to direct his rabid, racist Trump-loving followers to attack our organization. Rebecca did an interview with Infowars, where she referred to us as ‘hate group’ and ‘terrorists’.

From that point on, the alt-right and white supremacists made Blue Cat Cafe their own pet cause. The interviews with infowars helped fuel her gofundme, which raised over $15,000, including a $500 donation, left with a comment that said: ‘I hope these protesters die a slow horrible death’ and other violent and racist statements.

We have had regular white supremacist trolls ever since. Nazis in town for the “White Lives Matter” rally in November 2016 spoke of plans to visit the cafe and called to offer their admiration and support.But this still wasn’t the full view of her white supremacist ties. We began to notice a man lurking around our March for Jumpolin in February 2017.

Not long after, he was seen at another white supremacist event, an attack on the revolutionary May Day march, and he was identified as Paul Gray, Rebecca’s brother.And then, we came face to face with Paul when Rebecca invited him to ‘protect’ Blue Cat from our pickets. He gathered fellow Nazis, including Erik Sailors, and others who would later go to Charlottesville, and attacked our picket line on site, before we had even reached the sidewalk of Blue Cat Cafe.

While they attacked first, we and our allies defended ourselves. Erik Sailors, who has gained national notoriety since then, left the encounter with a split head, stitches, and a permanent scar of his stupidity. It has been revealed that Erik and Paul both were two Nazis who were putting up white supremacist propaganda on the Texas State campus in San Marcos in December 2017.

For being uncompromising about gentrification and Blue Cat Cafe, for fighting Nazis, we have earned the insults of people from many backgrounds. And while some may vote for Trump, and others think they’re liberal - they share one thing in common - they took the side of a gentrifier with ties to Nazis because of their own delusions of what is the ‘proper’ way to fight gentrification.

But we know they are on the wrong side of history. We stand in solidarity with militant anti-gentrification groups across the country, especially our comrades in Boyle Heights LA. They too have maintained longstanding boycotts against art galleries invading their community, and because of their resolve, have seen their movement grow, and one by one, the galleries start to fall. The forces of capitalism are beginning to fail in their strategy of using art galleries, or quirky coffee shops and cat cafes, as their forward guard of gentrification.

We know this is only the beginning. Other communities must take up the militant anti-Gentrification fight. But we know that capitalist interests will become more vindictive and more violent in protecting their investments. They will try to target leaders, and anyone affiliated with them. They have money and investments on the line.As Blue Cat Cafe demonstrated when they originally defied the boycott, the on-the-ground gentrifiers don’t think they are responsible for enabling exploiters like F&F, yet they paid rent into their pockets every month and helped shield F&F this whole time.

Now, with their space vacant, we warn anyone even considering moving into the space vacated by Blue Cat Cafe - we will go ten times harder against you than we did against Blue Cat. While Rebecca faked ignorance about the boycott, any business owner claiming the same will be exposed as complete liar.

If working-class Austinites truly want to fight gentrification, and not just feel defeated by it, they must take on the struggle of making sure that gentrifiers, developers, and other exploiters feel as uncomfortable and scared as the working-class feels in the face of gentrification.Gentrification destroys communities, leaves people homeless, leaves children traumatized, the elderly stressed and strained to survive. It is a war, and the longer that we act like it can be fought through fake peace - through going through the system that creates gentrification itself, the longer the working-class will feel defeated. But we are hopeful.

We didn’t give up on our fight, and we have won a small battle. We continue to fight new fronts, like Lou’s Bodega, or our ongoing campaign to stop the ‘Domain on Riverside’ that threatens thousands of students and workers. There are many others on the horizon, but we have been tested and will continue to grow stronger.

Join The Struggle - Fight Gentrification with Revolution!

Boycott the Landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, who Demolished Jumpolin!

Destroy Profits from Violent Displacement!

Build the Militant Anti-Gentrification Movement and Fight for the Working class!

[defendourhoodz]

No More Cats at Blue Cat Cafe...Except in the Freezer!?

We are excited to announce that Blue Cat Cafe has lost its primary supplier of cats, Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue. Fuzzy Texan were secretly supplying animals up until they abruptly announced on July 2 on facebook they were breaking ties with the cafe and that they would be removing all 18 of the cats at the cafe on July 3. But, while there are apparently no more adoptable cats at Blue Cat, a former employee claims, no joke, that Rebecca Gray has a dead cat in the freezer!

Fuzzy Texan was one of the groups that had supplied to cats to Blue Cat Cafe ever since we successfully pressured the Austin Humane society to cut ties in October 2017. After this, Blue Cat continued to find a cat supply, but there were agreements between suppliers and Blue Cat to keep the relationship hidden to avoid bad publicity. Fuzzy Texans breaking on their own is a sign of deep crisis at Blue Cat. When we found out that they would be removing the cats between 7 and 8PM on July 3, some of our group and supporters went down there to document the removal.

A statement on their facebook page shares some vague reasons that they didn’t feel the cats were being cared for properly, and they throw in the bogeyman of vandalism, yet again. We know though that the operator of Fuzzy Texan stated that she didn’t believe the claims that Rebecca is a racist. Ok, then what do you call someone who asks her Nazi brother to protect her cafe or stands by as Nazis attack people? A nazi!

When we arrived to Blue Cat, we watched as volunteers went in with empty pet carriers and came out with crying cats. It was a little sad at times. Contrary to wild rumors, many of us are animal lovers, and the kitties crying was a sad sight, but we were glad they were finally getting out of there.

We asked one volunteer what it was like inside. They said that there was a strong smell of ammonia, i.e. cat pee, and it was not a place you would want to linger and have a cup of coffee. One of the volunteers noticed a pregnant cat, and asked Becky when she started taking pregnant cats (watch video here). Becky said she was a stray she had trapped.

The cops did show up, but for once, they weren’t called on us. Apparently, Fuzzy Texan called them out of fear that Rebecca would not be cooperative with their extraction operation. The cops came and spoke to Fuzzy Texan volunteers for about a minute, and left without incident.We’ve been hard at work on the campaign to #defendRiverside, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about the nazi-aligned Blue Cat Cafe, which has been our longest campaign. We’ve known they were in dire straits, and heard rumors that Rebecca lived out of the cafe, a clear violation of local zoning and restaurant code.

Speaking of code, a former employee claims that when Marla, one of Rebecca’s cats, died six months ago, instead of finding an appropriate way to bury or cremate it, she put the cat in the freezer. This employee has called for ‘Justice for Marla’. This macabre situation should give pause to anyone still thinking that Blue Cat Cafe should remain open.

We have no sympathy for Rebecca Gray, who has only stayed afloat this long thanks to her alliance with people who think gentrification is a good thing and with white supremacists and the alt-right, including her own brother. They have injected money and support into the business simply to send a message to our community that they will uphold gentrification and racism to spite us.

Rebecca made her bed that she now lies in when she crossed the community boycott against her landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, the men who tore down the Jumpolin piñata store. She dug herself in further when she welcomed the support of Alex Jones, Infowars, and her nazi brother, Paul Gray.

And even though people will wildly claim this was all our fault - the fact is no one but Rebecca and her supporters allowed the cafe to reach this condition. We didn’t allow cat pee to permeate the air in the cafe. We didn’t cram 18 cats into a small room. We didn’t force Rebecca to go on Infowars and begin her alliance with the alt-right, or call on her nazi brother and friends to ‘protect’ her cafe. And we definitely didn’t put a dead cat in the freezer.

We have not picketed Blue Cat Cafe since February of this year. We have been busy building power against gentrification in the Riverside Area, and this surprise announcement took us so off guard that we had to reschedule some planned canvassing.

We knew we had to be there to document and watch this happen, but we also won’t declare total victory yet. As we have said, Blue Cat Cafe has lost their cat supply in the past and kept on going. They resorted to secret partnerships, and clearly taking it upon themselves to trap stray cats. Fuzzy Texan was one of these secret partnerships. It’s a shame because Blue Cat Cafe’s record of gentrification and white supremacy is clear. For many of these ‘animal lovers’ though, human issues are less important than animal ones, especially when they affect working-class brown and black communities.

But even if they take the typical white liberal position, customers and employees have shared numerous testimonies of animal neglect and employee mistreatment that many of Austin’s animal lovers have ignored. Fuzzy Texan, like many others, think they know better than the employees and community on the front lines. As we said, Fuzzy Texan operator, Rachel Nicole, on facebook, even as she was breaking ties, claimed that Rebecca isn’t a racist, or think it’s racist to ask nazis to protect your cafe.

So we still won’t put it past another racist, oblivious animal rescue operation to flout the boycott and partner with Blue Cat. Or we won’t put it past Rebecca and her dwindling supporters to start trapping more stray cats or cruising Craig’s List ads for animals. Blue Cat Cafe is a capitalist operation, not only as a small business, but as pusher of gentrification in the historic barrio. Maintaining it is a goal of Rebecca, the landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher, other gentrifiers, and the reactionary liberals, Trump supporters, and white supremacists who see Blue Cat Cafe as their pet cause. Capitalists will go to extreme lengths to maintain their charades in the name of profit, and especially to send a message to show how little they care about what the community wants.

Capitalism has to keep its crimes hidden away, just like Marla the cat is hidden in the freezer. But we will continue to apply heat and confront the shady dealings of exploiters in our community.

Our fight isn’t over until the cat lady sings! The boycott of Blue Cat Cafe will continue, and even if they shut down, the boycott of the landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher (F&F) will go on. Any business or operation that tries to cross the picket line will face the same resistance, but with even greater fire!

[defendourhoodz]

Three Years Since Jumpolin’s Demolition - Keep the Fires of Resistance Burning

Defend Our Hoodz delivered this speech at an action at Blue Cat Cafe on Saturday, February 10, 2018, to mark three years since the Demolition of Jumpolin.

Que viva Jumpolin! Que viva East Austin! Que viva the working class! 

We have kept the fire of resistance burning for three years against gentrification, displacement, and white supremacy. And we will never let it go out!

It’s been three years since the Lejarazu family arrived to their place of business to see that, they no longer had a place of business. It was being torn up by a bulldozer before the store’s opening hours, their merchandise still inside, and the indifferent demolition crew handing out their colorful piñatas to passersby. The iconic bright orange building, with bubble lettering and hand drawn cartoon characters, had been wiped away from East Cesar Chavez in an instant.

And then we learned the details. Two wealthy, white, techie brat landlords, making their moves in Austin, tore it down to meet parking requirements for a SXSW party. While many Austinites, especially Chicanos, Mexican immigrants, and other oppressed groups were up in arms seeing such an icon of our culture violently destroyed, others in Austin once again showed their racist liberal hypocrisy and claimed they deserved it because they were drug-dealers or bike thieves, one of the oldest tricks in the white supremacy handbook. Ivy league tool Jordan French echoed this response, saying that tearing it down was like ‘clearing out a house infested with roaches.’

The demolition of Jumpolin is Austin in a nutshell - mostly white, wealthy privileged landlords, developers, the tech industry, politicos vendidos, and all others who profit from exploitation are doing everything they can to turn the city into their luxury wasteland and bury the working class under the rubble. And then paint those who oppose it or are destroyed by it as the roaches that have to be cleared out.

And it’s also the typical Austin response to say, well that’s how it is and we can’t change it. And while we can’t claim that simply remembering what happened here is an act of revolution, we can say that by refusing to forget the crime of F&F and Blue Cat’s complicity, we are showing defiance. In our defiance and call to hurt the profits of landlords and gentrifiers, we forced our enemies to come out from behind the curtain they can normally hide behind undisturbed.

While capitalism and private property are the foundation of gentrification, in the settler-colonial United States, it is also directly tied to white supremacy. Blue Cat Cafe has made that undeniably clear after relying on the support of Infowars, Trump supporters, confederates, and of course, literal neo-nazis, including Rebecca Gray’s brother, Paul Gray to keep her business afloat. But Despite their violent racist threats, we have bravely returned today because we can not live in fear.

The forces of white supremacy and capitalism will continue to try to silence us and shut us down, with violence if necessary. They will produce fake news about us, paint us as animal haters. But the truth is: we love cats! We just really hate gentrification and nazis! Especially the nazi brother of Blue Cat Cafe owner Rebecca Gray, who she invited to come to this very spot where he and his nazi friends attacked our picket in June of last year. 

But we will fight back and challenge their genocidal politics in every arena, whether online, or in the streets. We uphold the defense of our ideas and our people by any means necessary!

We have power because we do not back down. We will continue to organize and build power across the city. We will go out into the hoods and barrios and talk to the masses who are tired of being afraid and inspire them to fight, and show them that we can do this together. 

We have no more time to waste on the failed politics of compromise, respectability and fake ideas of representation for oppressed peoples within the capitalist-imperialist system.

They demolish - we build. They destroy - we create.They practice self-interest - we practice solidarity and come together, unified with the force to take away their power..

We will never again be discouraged or silenced by those who tell us to ‘let it go’ and accept things the way they are. Their time is growing short. Their loyalty is to a dying system, built on profit and individualism. Our growing collective power will bury them in the discarded rubble of history.

Our demand has not changed since 3 years ago. Jordan French and Darius Fisher, you are not welcome in Austin. Blue Cat Cafe, your complicity in gentrification and your white supremacist backing are no less welcome. We demand you pack it up, and don’t come back! And for every gentrifying force wondering when we’ll focus on them with the same determination, don’t worry, the people’s fire will come for you soon!

[defendourhoodz]

A Warning from a Former Blue Cat Cafe Employee

Note: This is the 6th testimony from a former employee that has been sent to us. After we published an initial account about 3 weeks ago, more and more employees have come forward to verify other employee claims as well as share their own experience at Blue Cat Cafe. The consistent themes are employee abuse, animal neglect, and wage theft. We stand with these employees and against their abuse and exploitation by Blue Cat Cafe and owner Rebecca Gray. We welcome more to come forward and respect all requests for anonymity.

Employee Account: I worked for the Blue Cat Café for six months. I was in love at first. It was my first job and everything seemed to fall right into place. Behind the cute cats, crazy artwork, and “family fun” atmosphere I got yelled at, cheated, and duped along with many other great employees who I hope have found better work.

 The first incident involving Rebecca’s attitude and behavior was about four weeks after I had first started. Everything seemed fine but Rebecca became angry when ONE drink order was not coming fast enough. She then closed the café an hour before closing and tossed drinks to the ground outside like a big drama queen. I had to turn away a woman who I later found out ran a popular mommy blog. She then wrote a one star review on the Facebook page and Rebecca responded with a BS answer that power went out in the food truck. This was also around the same time that the reviews on Facebook were turned off. 

In the time I was there eleven employees quit or were fired. Quite an abysmal turnover rate if you ask me. Especially for a small business only one year into its life. 

In my mind I would have said these were “isolated incidences” and things would get better. They did not. The gluing of the doors is what should have told me to get out while I still could.  

The final event that made me quit happened on a particularly bad day. Going into work that day I knew I wasn’t going to be around for much longer. I was the only one in the café for the morning while we had two people in the kitchen. This worked only for some time as with all Saturdays things got busy. One employee left early leaving me and another server to be the only help inside the building. The restaurant was packed beyond what I had ever seen even in my first few months. A cook came in saying Rebecca was yelling and throwing things around and saying that “we are done”. 

Rebecca came in and told us that we were closed. We were backed into a corner of the café when she began taking her anger out on the server who wasn’t scheduled to come in until 4 but came at around 1:30 to fill in for the employee who left early. 

She said “Because you came in early were fucked!” One cook suggested we moved to the back to talk this out. That is when Rebecca really let us have it. It was the most I had seen her yell up until then surprisingly. The server quit right there and we all walked out as she told the café that they were closing. There are yelp reviews and google reviews that recount that day from a costumer perspective. Memory serves me that one deleted review said they visited hours later and went in to find a hostel and on edge Rebecca. When they offered their help and asked if there was anything they could do Rebecca responded “Yeah come in the morning and clean up cat poop” (one of my many duties) 

I did not return for my shift the next day. I had made up my mind and even told family and friends that I was quitting from the Blue Cat Café. She tried several times to get me back but I stood my ground. I was finished. 

This was a small overview of my experience working there. Here are some more details highlighting her ineffectiveness in customer service and business.

A guy and his friends came in one early morning to find his phone that might have been left behind at the café. It seemed she was buddying up to them until she yelled “I don’t have time to look for your fucking phone! I am real busy.” There was also a yelp review in which she went ballistic over a mother innocently walking into the café without signing the waiver. She even mocked the woman who was calling her out on her bullshit. This was the same woman who wrote the review.

Paychecks where always up in the air. Sometimes I got them as late as a week. I didn’t even get my paycheck for the weekend before I quit. In the end I was payed over $30 for my last day. Other employees had problems with paychecks. I should have been more demanding but I didn’t want to lose my job and I had no idea how the legal process would work if it came to that. 

There was lots of micromanagement and things having to be so particular that if one thing was out of place you would be humiliated in front of employees or customers. This happened to me quite a few times over washing the mats, IPAD chargers, how I handled my duties, and the cleaning of the restaurant.

Her doing the InfoWars interview should have sent me packing. I read the donation comments on the GoFund me which included racist people donating. I even sat down a few of these men for a Facebook event they created if I remember correctly being called “Fuck Defend our Hoodz” at the café. 

From what I read about health code violations I confirm that yes, the kitchen wasn’t always in a clean state. I now realize that so many rules were broken and so many violations were going on behind the scenes. I can also confirm the storage of the food under big benches. 

She said she was stepping down as owner but I know that is a lie. Just like with employees she went thought several managers who were good people. I can even confirm the treatment she showed towards her own mother. 

If there are indeed cats that get sick and don’t get treatment, then that might explain two cases of people receiving cats that had fleas, were underweight, or had worms.

I want this to be a warning to anyone who is thinking about working for or associating with Blue Cat Cafe. I should have wised up at several points during my time there. It wasn’t until things got really bad that I finally left. Always do your research on a job if you can, and see where they stand with their community. It is a community that can make and break a business.

[defendourhoodz]

Blue Cat Cafe made some big announcements yesterday. One, they don't deny that Nazis were part of their protection that attacked our picketers 2 weeks ago.

Second, they're saying Rebecca Gray has stepped down as the main director of the business.

We just want confirm that the new investors are not only inheriting a cat cafe, they're inheriting a community boycott and our opposition.

The Blue Cat Cafe is still under boycott. It still sits on the ruins of Jumpolin, on land that is still owned by the men who called Mexican immigrants 'cockroaches' and squashed their business under their feet.

The land value continues to rise thanks to gentrification and their act of white supremacist violence. It is part of the same pattern that causes the astronomic increases in rents and taxes for longtime, working-class residents.

We called on the community to boycott this business and its example of gentrification, not on Rebecca Gray. But it was Gray who responded to our boycott with escalation that illustrated how profit protects itself.

Gray called the cops on us every time we picketed, meaning she thinks we deserve state violence for expressing our opposition to profit from gentrification.

She falsely accused us of vandalism and went on Infowars to call us 'terrorists' and a 'hate group', embracing the Trump-supporting trolls who sent us death threats and donated to her gofundme.

Then, this month, she welcomed her nazi brother and his nazi friends to attack a lawful picket. She was just fine with their white supremacist ideology that celebrates racist, classist displacement embodied in gentrification, as long as they're 'protecting' her business.

But, enough about the past. We're interested to find out who the new investors are. Are they going to still welcome the Nazi and alt-right support that has flocked to Blue Cat Cafe? Are they still going to call the cops on protesters?

The new owners are still profiting from the demolition. Their business is still profiting landowners Jordan French and Darius Fisher and contributes to the erasure and displacement of the East Austin Barrio. The boycott on Blue Cat Cafe stands.

[defendourhoodz]

In light of recent revelations that Paul Gray, brother of owner of Blue Cat Cafe, Rebecca Gray, is a prominent neo-nazi organizer in Texas, we ask the community and our allies to sign onto the boycott of Blue Cat Cafe. Paul has provided security multiple times and has attacked community members and their supporters at the cafe. Rebecca still has not apologized or recognized that she has done anything wrong, yet she has raised $15,000 thanks to the support of Alex Jones, white supremacists and trump supporters.

Stand against white supremacy and join the boycott against Blue Cat Cafe!

https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSeNsjBdTSkUCPwdQ…/viewform…