Frustrated Chicago Entrepreneur Explains Why She Backed Out Of Deal With Yellow Banana To Open Coffee Bar

Kavia Simmons says she spent thousands of dollars preparing her Chicago coffee bar to open in a prime location, but it never happened.

Kavia Simmons, founder of I Love My Coffee Black, had her heart set on expanding her online brand to a coffee bar in the Englewood Save A Lot. But plans fell through for the 38-year-old entrepreneur, who said she was ghosted by retail grocery platform Yellow Banana, which owns and operates stores in the Chicago metropolitan area.

The deal between Simmons and Yellow Banana followed a 2022 redevelopment agreement by the city of Chicago, which appointed the Ohio-based retail operator to renovate and reopen six grocery stores on the South and West side that have less access to fresh foods.

Simmons told WBEZ Chicago that she put her brand on the line in hopes she would be serving coffee, tea, smoothies and pastries out of a new coffee bar in the Save A Lot at 832 W. 63rd St., a former Whole Foods building.

The deal with Yellow Banana presented the Black-owned vendor with a minimal-risk and affordable option to exchange 5% of her coffee bar’s monthly sales for the use of Whole Foods’ existing cafe space and equipment left behind in 2022.

“I was really excited because it gave me an opportunity to go from online to brick and mortar with low overhead,” said Simmons.

The year-long lease, signed by Yellow Banana CEO Joe Canfield in March 2023, promised Simmons free rent for the first six months, utilities, and internet service. However, Simmons called it quits on the deal last summer due to what she called unfulfilled promises from the grocery operator, such as failure to pay the internet bill and provide equipment. She ran into issues with the heater and broken equipment. The space was flagged twice for low water temperature in 2023, and the store was hit with a citation in 2024 for operating without a valid business license.

“I don’t even know why I stayed as long as I did,” said the Chicago native who watched her potential coffee bar undergo phases of being stocked and emptied in the process of opening.

Yellow Banana was founded in 2021 by three Black entrepreneurs, Michael Nance, Walker Brumskine, and Ademola Adewale-Sadik, who became friends at Yale Law School.

Hiring community-based and Black vendors was a part of the initial promises presented by Yellow Banana, which was given a budget of over $13 million to renovate and reopen the six stores across the city of Chicago, slated to meet specific city requirements by a March 31 deadline. The firm received $250,000 and discounted rent for the Englewood store. Englewood residents criticized the city’s decision to replace the Whole Foods with a Save a Lot. Yellow Banana, which, according to LinkedIn, also operates stores under the Save a Lot banner across the Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Jacksonville and Dallas metropolitan areas, faces six-figure lawsuits filed in 2023 in Ohio, as noted by the Chicago Sun-Times.

“I kind of started to feel like they used me to make themselves look better at a time when no one really wanted them there,” Simmons said. “And then once things didn’t go right, I just got ghosted like everybody else,” Simmons claimed communications from Canfield came to a halt by February 2024. The Yellow Banana CEO failed to respond to messages regarding renewing the expiring lease, returning keys and reimbursing license fees.

I Love My Coffee Black was launched in 2019 to offer coffee lovers a healthy option for a “clean cup of black coffee” made from quality beans and infused with distinctive flavors, without the sugar and dairy. Products are available to purchase online.