Two years ago, coffee entrepreneur Kavia Simmons thought she had fallen into the perfect opportunity to take her online store, I Love My Coffee Black, to the next level as a coffee bar inside the Save A Lot at 832 W. 63rd St.
Amid promises of hiring community-based and Black vendors, store owner Yellow Banana said she could use existing cafe space in its former Whole Foods building.
The Ohio-based company offered the Auburn-Gresham native a low-risk, low-cost opportunity: She’d pay them 5% of her shop’s monthly sales in exchange for using the space, as well as equipment Whole Foods left behind in 2022.
But Simmons has since walked away from the deal, disgusted, after spending thousands on inventory. Her coffee bar never opened for business.
The 38-year-old blames Yellow Banana, saying the company didn’t keep its end of the deal to provide working internet and equipment and then stopped responding when she spoke up. She describes a chaotic situation during the 16 months she showed up to prep for opening and run her online business.
“I don’t even know why I stayed as long as I did,” said Simmons, who finally gave up on the deal last summer. “I guess it’s because I actually did put my brand on the line, and I kind of started to feel like they used me to make themselves look better at a time when no one really wanted them there.
“And then once things didn’t go right, I just got ghosted like everybody else.”
Yellow Banana was chosen by the city of Chicago in a 2023 redevelopment agreement to renovate and reopen six other grocery stores in areas with few fresh food options on the South and West sides. The Englewood store — for which Yellow Banana received $250,000 and discounted rent — is separate from the deal that promised $20 million in public money to the company if it renovates six stores and meets certain city requirementsby March 31.
The company has faced significant problems, as the Sun-Times has documented, including racking up $2 million in unpaid bills as it lost control of dozens of stores elsewhere. Six-figure lawsuits were filed beginning in fall 2023 in Ohio.
Residents protested Yellow Banana’s arrival in Englewood as a low-quality shopping experience.
Neither a Yellow Banana spokeswoman nor CEO Joe Canfield — who signed Simmons’ lease — returned requests for comment.
Simmons launched her niche coffee company in 2019, selling flavor-infused beans, roasted locally, as a heart-healthy way to enjoy coffee without adding sugar and cream.
The partnership with Save A Lot came to Simmons through Stivers Coffee, where Simmons still works.
“I thought it was great. … I was really excited because it gave me an opportunity to go from online to brick and mortar with low overhead,” said Simmons, who also considered a food truck as a sensible next step.
The 150-square-foot walk-up bar would serve coffee, tea, smoothies and pastries in what Simmons describes as a “prime location in the front of the store.”
Yellow Banana’s year-long lease, signed in March 2023, gave Simmonssix months rent free to get started in its “first class grocery store.” She spent the first five months trying to get licenses, which got delayed, she said, because the ice maker and other provided equipment hadn’t been maintained and failed inspections.
The lease guaranteed utilities and internet, but Simmons said the company didn’t pay the internet bill, so her payment system couldn’t operate. At times, the heat didn’t work either. A city inspector flagged low water temperature in sinks twice in 2023, inspection reports show. Simmons emailed Canfield in September 2023 to tell him the store’s plumber broke her espresso machine.
Meanwhile, Simmons watched the store get stocked with groceries and emptied ahead of failed openings. She counts about six store managers after the doors opened to the public in May 2023. In March 2024, Chicago officials cited the store for operating without a valid business license.
Other potential local vendors toured the space but never finalized contracts.
“All I know in my conversations with them was, they were very decent people,” said Chicago chef Cliff Rome, owner of Peach’s Restaurant. “It was going to be a consulting partnership. It never took off. They were dealing with so much with the community. We thought, let them get their things together and get their sea legs out. But it never happened.”
The exception was Dion’s Chicago Dream, which provides fresh produce for clients in lockers inside the store.
By February 2024, Simmons said Canfield had stopped responding to her messages about renewing the expiring lease, returning keys and reimbursing license fees Canfield fronted.
But before she moved her stuff out last summer from an office upstairs and the cafe, she said she needed to figure out how to get the store’s elevator to work.
“I read the elevator manual,” Simmons said. “It took me seven days, and I figured it out.”