Rachael's Cafe

Rachael’s Café opened in January of 2008 in Bloomington, Indiana at 300 East Third Street, near the corner of Third Street and Lincoln Street near Indiana University’s campus. The café offers a selection of gourmet coffee, tea, and wine, as well as many food items and baked goods. Rachael’s Café is open seven days a week until 9:00 pm except on Sundays, when it closes at 7:00 pm. There is an array of live music, poetry slams, open mic nights, art shows, and fundraisers held regularly at the café.

Owner Rachael Jones is a transgendered individual from Brown County, Indiana who decided to open a welcoming and open minded café after running out of other employment opportunities. She wanted to transition from Eric to Rachael, and living as a transgendered individual working as a salesman was not an option. Not being able to be herself affected her productivity and caused Jones to start to fail, and she began unsuccessfully to look for new work as Rachael. “I mean, there are a couple bars in town that are fairly liberal, I was welcome there, but they didn’t want to hire me as a bar tender,” says Jones. Jones decided that because of her lack of options and love of people that she would open a coffee shop.

Rachael Jones turned a vacant building that had formally been a laundromat into the eclectically decorated Rachael’s Café. She chose to open the café in Bloomington because it is “the best city in the state” and is “a pearl.” She also likes Bloomington for its international connections, “I think people come to Bloomington from all over the world and they go from Bloomington to all over the world. If you can share ideas here, what a birth place to help change.” The café acts as a venue for different GLBT events, carries The Word and The Advocate amongst its large selection of available reading material but, she does not want to pigeon hole Rachael’s Café as strictly an alternative place. Jones says, “I might have more business, but I would not accomplish anything.” When describing her mission statement for the café Jones says, “I want to affect change in the community. I want to have the Buddhist and the Baptist and the Republican and the Green Party and everyone in-between to be able to come here and talk and discuss and argue…We have a big round table down there that I would like to use that for.” Rachael’s Café is a new but already well-loved queer friendly community meeting place.

Sources:

Jones, Rachael. Interviewed by Bryn Hannon. Bloomington, IN. 13 November 2009.

Peters, Nicholas. Rachael’s Café [pt. 4 of 5]. Bloomington, IN. 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1szS7PvzbE (accessed November 13, 2009)

Rachael’s Café. “Rachael’s Café.” http://www.bloomingtononline.net/directory/site/mini/1252 (accessed November 10, 2009)