Ink! Coffee managed to exist north of downtown Denver for just short of three years without instigating a racial conflagration.
As the Denver Public Library will tell you, the Five Points area used be home to virtually every black resident of the city - not always by their own choice. The neighborhood became a black cultural center, struggled economically for decades, and then in the 21st century saw a sudden influx of wealth and prestige (e.g., trendy coffee shops) and the corresponding departure of black families who had built the place.
That sad irony of history is commonly called gentrification and it's played out in some form in almost every major city in the United States. Which is to say it caused no great furor when Ink opened in long-since gentrified Five Points in December 2014.
No uproar then, or in 2015, or 2016. Or for most of this year - until Wednesday afternoon, when a sign spotted outside read: Happily Gentrifying The Neighbordhood Since 2014.
"BAD. W.T.F.," asked Five Points local Ru Johnson when she shared the photo on Twitter.
"Their sign was almost like a poke in the eye for the people who have worked to make the community what it is, and a lot of those people have been pushed out," Johnson told the Denver Post.
The NAACP demanded the sign be removed, though a skateboarder stole it first, according to the Denver Post.
The company's first attempt was a joke. Ink! Coffee had apparently drank too much coffee, and therefore accidentally celebrated gentrification.
Many would not.
"It's not that simple," as one commenter put it. "Y'all need to be shut down."
By the next day, someone had smashed out a window and spray painted "White Coffee" across Ink's storefront, the Denver Post reported. "There was a smaller, more profane message written on the store's main sign," the newspaper added.
So Ink tried yet another apology. This time the chain's founder Keith Herbert published a thick mea culpa on Facebook, writing that he had thought a proudly gentrifying coffee shop would be seen as a good thing, but now understood his error.
"I am embarrassed to say that I did not fully appreciate the very real and troubling issue of gentrification," Mr Herbert wrote. "When our advertising firm presented this campaign to us, I interpreted it as taking pride in being part of a dynamic, evolving community that is inclusive of people of all races, ethnicities, religions and gender identities. I recognize now that we had a blind spot to other legitimate interpretations. I sincerely apologise - absolutely and unequivocally."
This conflicted somewhat with the ad agency's apology - posted the same day - which contended that the sign had been meant "to offer cynical perspective on the rapid development" of Five Points, but had missed "the true meaning of gentrification."
Some were appeased by the contrition, and wished the coffee shop good luck surviving the PR storm.
One woman even wrote that she had liked the sign, and hoped gentrification would soon come to her neighborhood.
But a local boycott movement was by then growing by the dozen and hundreds, and by Friday the Denver Post still had not been to reach anyone at Ink by phone or in person.
That afternoon, a city cleanup crew covered up the "White Coffee" scrawled on ink's red bricks.
About 20 people stood across the street, the Post reported, watching. And more than 600 others had signed up to protest in front of the store on Saturday afternoon.
As the Denver Public Library will tell you, the Five Points area used be home to virtually every black resident of the city - not always by their own choice. The neighborhood became a black cultural center, struggled economically for decades, and then in the 21st century saw a sudden influx of wealth and prestige (e.g., trendy coffee shops) and the corresponding departure of black families who had built the place.
That sad irony of history is commonly called gentrification and it's played out in some form in almost every major city in the United States. Which is to say it caused no great furor when Ink opened in long-since gentrified Five Points in December 2014.
No uproar then, or in 2015, or 2016. Or for most of this year - until Wednesday afternoon, when a sign spotted outside read: Happily Gentrifying The Neighbordhood Since 2014.
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"BAD. W.T.F.," asked Five Points local Ru Johnson when she shared the photo on Twitter.
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"Their sign was almost like a poke in the eye for the people who have worked to make the community what it is, and a lot of those people have been pushed out," Johnson told the Denver Post.
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The NAACP demanded the sign be removed, though a skateboarder stole it first, according to the Denver Post.
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The company's first attempt was a joke. Ink! Coffee had apparently drank too much coffee, and therefore accidentally celebrated gentrification.
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Many would not.
"It's not that simple," as one commenter put it. "Y'all need to be shut down."
By the next day, someone had smashed out a window and spray painted "White Coffee" across Ink's storefront, the Denver Post reported. "There was a smaller, more profane message written on the store's main sign," the newspaper added.
So Ink tried yet another apology. This time the chain's founder Keith Herbert published a thick mea culpa on Facebook, writing that he had thought a proudly gentrifying coffee shop would be seen as a good thing, but now understood his error.
"I am embarrassed to say that I did not fully appreciate the very real and troubling issue of gentrification," Mr Herbert wrote. "When our advertising firm presented this campaign to us, I interpreted it as taking pride in being part of a dynamic, evolving community that is inclusive of people of all races, ethnicities, religions and gender identities. I recognize now that we had a blind spot to other legitimate interpretations. I sincerely apologise - absolutely and unequivocally."
This conflicted somewhat with the ad agency's apology - posted the same day - which contended that the sign had been meant "to offer cynical perspective on the rapid development" of Five Points, but had missed "the true meaning of gentrification."
Some were appeased by the contrition, and wished the coffee shop good luck surviving the PR storm.
One woman even wrote that she had liked the sign, and hoped gentrification would soon come to her neighborhood.
But a local boycott movement was by then growing by the dozen and hundreds, and by Friday the Denver Post still had not been to reach anyone at Ink by phone or in person.
That afternoon, a city cleanup crew covered up the "White Coffee" scrawled on ink's red bricks.
About 20 people stood across the street, the Post reported, watching. And more than 600 others had signed up to protest in front of the store on Saturday afternoon.
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