Concordia Food Coalition in Negotiations to Buy Burritoville

NewsMichael Wrobel — Published March 18, 2015

The intent is to transform the business into “a solidarity cooperative primarily run by students,” said Lauren Aghabozorgi, the CFC’s office coordinator.

The cooperative has been registered with the government and a board of directors is already in place to begin making decisions.

“Now, it’s really a question of raising money to actually purchase the business,” Aghabozorgi said, adding that the CFC is hoping for “fruitful results in the upcoming year.”

The CFC declined to provide The Link with the asking price for the business.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t want to disclose a number because we’re in a negotiation process,” Aghabozorgi said. “Upon the business valuation and the business plan being written, there’s some new concerns that have come up. Right now, it’s in kind of a stage of limbo where we don’t know what the asking price is exactly.”

Any deal would cover only the business, which rents the building. Aghabozorgi said there’s a possibility the cooperative could try to buy the building from the landlord later on.

The CFC is looking at various sources of funding, from the Concordia Student Union to the university’s Sustainability Action Fund, in order to make the purchase, she said. The cooperative’s membership fees will also help.

“When it comes to student money that we [at the CFC] get out of our fee levy, none of it is actually going towards the purchase of the business; it’s going to different things like the writing of this business plan, more logistical things like fees for registering as a coop under the government. Even those fees we’ve acquired from CCSL, the Concordia Council on Student Life. We’re continuously looking for different channels of funding,” Aghabozorgi said.

According to her, purchasing the business would have a positive impact on student life.

“Student groups have events there, concerts and art exhibits and everything,” she said. “We really didn’t want to see the space be lost, let alone be in the hands of somebody who really wanted to run it in a profit-oriented way.”