MilkBoy Coffee's expansion to Center City draws union protests

When music-and-coffee entrepreneurs Jamie Lokoff and Tommy Joyner opened MilkBoy Coffee in the heart of Ardmore's commercial strip six years ago, they pictured a place where students from the Main Line's bustling college scene could hear a live band or just hang out.

What they didn't anticipate was a crash course in the hardball world of union politics, Philadelphia style.

Since November, MilkBoy's Ardmore customers have been greeted by a clutch of protesters bearing signs declaring "Shame on MilkBoy Coffee" and "MilkBoy Coffee Hurts Our Community."

The protest by members of the Philadelphia carpenters union over the use of nonunion labor at a soon-to-open MilkBoy in Center City has turned heads in the normally low-key town and clashed with the laid-back vibe of the popular coffeehouse.

It has also driven off customers and left the partners - both card-carrying members of the musicians union - more than a little confused about their personal position on organized labor.

"I always thought unions were good and played an important role in our country's history," Lokoff said. "But I 100 percent believe I did not do anything wrong."

His partner was more sanguine: "Maybe at this point, I'm a little antiunion."

After months of silence, the two have decided to strike back, with humor.

They recently printed T-shirts that matched the protest banner "Shame on MilkBoy," and sold them to loyal customers with proceeds going to charity.

They sold out quickly, leading to a second MilkBoy T-shirt that reads, "Menace to Ardmore."

"We were trying to make light of the situation," said Lokoff, 45, who lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three children. "If we didn't laugh, we'd be crying."

The union demonstrators rarely say anything, much like their boss, carpenters union chief Edward Coryell Sr., who did not return phone calls for comment.

Instead, they've spelled out their side of the argument in leaflets they hand out to Ardmore customers: that the owner of MilkBoy's pending Philadelphia site, U3 Ventures, is damaging the local economy by hiring two subcontractors that use lower-wage nonunion labor.

Lokoff and Joyner, both commercial musicians, are members of the American Federation of Musicians. They still get union work writing jingles for products such as Huggies. "We try to get as many as we can, because they're good money," Joyner, 40, said of the union gigs.