Parable Cafe, the gratuity-free coffee shop that’s called downtown home since 2022, has closed its doors for now. The shop announced the pause on Instagram Aug. 19, writing simply, “All operations paused for the time being,” and noting that it was stepping back to “work through business operations.”
Parable first launched as a pop-up inside Comune in 2020 before opening its High Street cafe two years later. It quickly built a following for its mission-driven model: pay-what-you-can options for customers in need, higher drink prices that supported staff benefits, and a culture centered on employee well-being.
But behind the scenes, employees say the past year has been anything but stable.
A new Instagram account, @parablegonedark, shared a lengthy statement from staff describing late paychecks, sudden restructuring, and the arrival of a “silent investor” who they allege now holds majority ownership. According to the employees, that investor, Ron Reynolds of Arete Capital Partners, brought an approach that clashed with Parable’s original mission, focusing on cost-cutting instead of community.
Co-founder Benjamin Willis responded in an Instagram story, saying he was “incredibly disappointed with how this has all ended up” and is working to get employees the money they’re owed.
For many who worked there, Parable was more than a coffee shop — it was a space built on values of care, creativity, and community. Now, its future is uncertain. Employees say they’re still waiting on paychecks, and customers are left wondering whether Parable’s story has ended, or if this pause could someday give way to a new chapter.
Read the full statement from the employees below:
Parable Employee Statement via @parablegonedark
As Parable closes its doors today, we the employees, the life blood of the business, and the people who made this space, are grieving what this place was to us and what it has turned into.
A tumultuous year of inconsistent communication, repeated late and bounced paychecks, sudden restructuring, and overall chaos and instability, reached its culmination in the last few weeks as we learned more about how ownership appears to have managed this business — and by extension our livelihoods.
Roughly a year ago, some of us were informed by Ben and Jeffrey that a “silent investor” had been brought in to assist with undefined financial concerns at Parable. Ron Reynolds — a principal of Arete Capital Partners, and COO of Farids & Co — was, to our understanding via Ben, the individual who invested a large financial sum into Parable to settle existing debts and provide financial and structural support to ownership. What we were not made aware of at the time is that Ron acquired an ownership stake in the company — which we now have learned was a majority position.
We feel Ben and Jeffrey handed over their business, their staff, and their mission to someone who, in our personal experience, has not demonstrated care for the Columbus community or for the values Parable was built upon. Though Ron had multiple opportunities and avenues to engage directly with the entire team, we feel he did not make any meaningful effort to connect with us, our people, or support our mission. Based on our experience, his background in what we perceived as “aggressive restructuring” — which to us looked like cost cutting at the expense of our well-being — clashed deeply with how this space has always operated. We still don’t know why Ron was brought in with the level of control he appears to have had, but based on the impact we’ve felt since then, we believe his approach does not align with or benefit the values and people at the heart of Parable — us, and you.
Ben and Jeffrey, while both culpable, started this business with the mission of community first. It feels to us that Ron approaches with a profit-first perspective, with our community treated as secondary.
While it feels like Ron was the catalyst, Ben and Jeffrey’s inability to communicate effectively with staff, and lack of transparency, allowed for the events of the last year to play out in a way that harmed us most in the end. We as a united front feel they were willing to lie for their benefit, and are walking proof of what will happen when you run a business on impulse decisions and passive solutions.
Despite employees’ multiple demands for more honesty and transparency about finances, more info on organizational structure, and overall just a seat at the table, ownership continued to make major decisions with very little information being given to employees. Sometimes, employees found out about new structure of hours, wages, etc. not through Ben and Jeffrey themselves, but through social media posts. When the proverbial shit would inevitably hit the fan, we were often met with reassurances of “we’ll do better” and “the employees come first” and “don’t worry, we have money,” but we did not see those words followed by consistent action. Instead, the cycle continues.
When all was said and done, our trust in ownership’s ability to lead with empathy, collaborate with us, and most importantly pay us, was obliterated. We feel this is a broken relationship that cannot be fixed, there is no remedy for the multiple maladies they thrust upon us, and the “Parable” that we once knew is now just another name of another failed business.
As of releasing this statement, we are still awaiting paychecks from 2 weeks ago, with another week of work completed and owed to us Monday August 25th. If we do not receive pay by then, we will be three weeks behind, with no confirmation of if or when we will get paid.
To our customers, our friends, our family, our community: please continue to keep eyes on this page as we let you know how we can be supported, and where we all land after this. We as a community take care of each other and while ownership may have lost sight of that, we haven’t.
Featured image via Parable on Facebook.
