Leia Doe says when she started working at the Cambridge store of the nonprofit grocery chain the Daily Table in 2021, she told her boss that she wanted to be a store manager.
“And she said, ‘I’m going to get you ready for that,’” Doe remembered. “Within six months, I was the store manager.”
She went on to manage Daily Table locations in Roxbury and Mattapan before moving into a management position where she supported all four Daily Table locations.
“I’ve been in retail for a long time,” Doe said. “I didn’t get recognized until I got to the Daily Table. ‘Hey, she could be a manager.’ … I’ve always had the skills, but it wasn’t seen until Daily Table.”
That kind of support makes the news last week that the Daily Table is closing its doors all the more heartbreaking for employees. The mission-driven chain also paid above minimum wage, making the work not just fulfilling but more lucrative for its employees.
“We all cried,” Doe said. “Many of us come from the communities that we serve. I was born and raised in Roxbury. I could see my community right out the window. And [it’s heartbreaking] not just for us, but for the communities we serve. Because we can always find another job, but what happens to the people that depend on us?”
Daily Table laid off 82 employees in total, including workers at its four remaining stores in Dorchester, Roxbury, Cambridge and Salem, as well as five drivers, eight kitchen employees and 14 support staff.
For those now looking for other jobs, it may be hard to find ones that pay as much.
“Our mission as a nonprofit was to try to build stronger communities through healthier food, but also through good jobs,” said Daily Table founder and chairman Doug Rauch. “And so one of the things that we discovered early on in our life as Daily Table was that our staff couldn’t live on minimum wage.”
In 2019, the organization brought pay rates up to what was calculated to be a living wage for each community they served — about $15 an hour at the time. Rauch said they believed they’d be better able to attract and retain staff if they paid a living wage.
“And then when they’re retained, they can be more productive because they’re getting more and more knowledge and experience,” Rauch said. “All of which panned out to be true. And our turnover rate dropped significantly.”
A 2020 case study by researchers at Harvard Business School said in addition to a drop in turnover, the Daily Table saw an increase in labor productivity.
The wages made a difference for Doe.
“When you make minimum wage, you’re living by check-by-check,” Doe said. “I got to pay this bill and then hold onto this bill ’til next week.”
Making more money at the Daily Table alleviated that stress, Roe said.
“I had no more concerns,” she said. “I got a savings account, was able to move. I was able do a lot knowing that I was being paid the living wages.”
Now that the stores have closed, one thing Rauch is certain of is that the financial problems the Daily Table faced were not the result of its relatively generous wages.
“We did not close our stores because we were paying living wage,” he said. “We closed our stores because we endured three ... once-in-a-lifetime events.”
The first of those was the COVID-19 pandemic, which Rauch referred to as a “gut punch” to their sales. The organization managed to survive the pandemic, only to be hit by historically high levels of inflation in food prices.
“Unlike other grocers, we couldn’t just pass all those costs through because then we wouldn’t be living our mission of affordable nutrition,” he said. “We had to absorb a bunch of those costs.”
The final straw, Rauch said, was the current funding climate, including freezes on USDA grants.
“That is the reason we ran short of money, not because we’re paying people a living wage,” Rauch said. “It’s too easy an answer to think it’s that. ‘Oh, if they just paid people minimum wage, they’d make it.’ Not in your life. We’ve lived it. We know that by paying living wage, you’re able to get far more productivity. You have your cost of turnover, which is so high for retailers, drop dramatically. And it’s the right thing to do.”
Among those employees was Tarshia Paige, who expected to celebrate two years working at the Daily Table later this month.
“I was a customer first before I became an employee,” she said. “I’ve lived in Cambridge for 10 years. So it was a perfect opportunity. When they brought Daily Table here, you know, they had all this healthy food. It was very affordable. It was all for the community.”
“I love helping the families. I love my team. I love my employers. It’s just — I’m gonna miss it.”Tarshia Paige, Daily Table employee
When she was hired by Daily Table, she’d been out of work for years after a difficult battle with COVID, she said.
“But Daily Table, it brought me up, it strengthened me, it motivated me, it determined me,” she said. “I didn’t have the faith and courage in myself that I can do this, but they encouraged me to move up. And I took on a more responsible role and I was a beast at it. I became awesome at my job.”
She’s already getting job offers, she said, but they don’t pay as well as Daily Table.
“I love my job,” Paige said. “I love helping the community. You know, I love helping the families. I love my team. I love my employers. It’s just — I’m gonna miss it.”
With the closure, the nonprofit’s leaders are memorializing the end of a decadelong community service — but also celebrating its accomplishments.
“This is incredibly devastating. It’s heart-wrenching,” said Daily Table CEO Sasha Purpura. “What we did for 10 years, the fact that we were able to provide an incredible solution that offered not only affordable food to the communities but living wage jobs. It may have ended this week. It does not mean it cannot work. It did work. It worked for 10 years.
“I want to celebrate what did happen, and I want others to know what happened because it can happen again,” she continued.
