Asheville is a city of rebirths. Activism waxes and wanes. Generational gaps prevail. Burnout is rampant. We strive to retain our sanity in a culture and a world where our efforts seem lost in the tides. Enter Firestorm Cafe and Books. Firestorm is that vegan cafe and infoshop in downtown Asheville. You might have stopped in while passing through. You might have seen us in the back of your slingshot. You might have never heard of us at all. </p>
We opened in May of 2008 and within the year were exhausted and crushed by a system that has no place for a non hierarchal, anti-capitalist community space. Run by consensus and worker owned, we make our purchases from companies that come closest to our value structure. We try to keep things local at all costs and employ business practices to that effect. We give back to our community and try to defy the scary anarchist stereotypes that tend to follow so many of us around. We use customized open source software, we provide free computer and Internet access, extending the "space" we offer into the digital realm. We provide a meeting and event space, regularly host a variety of events by an incredibly diverse set of community groups (from local queer student networks to Earth First!, Rising Tide, and CopWatch). Collectively we believe in building autonomous communities within a broken culture and strive to hold our space to that standard.read more



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