Long Table is open two days a week, nine months a year. This is the year.
Green is open. Fridays 10 to 5 and Saturdays 10 to 3, March through December. Closed in January and February while the next year's orders are placed.
Long Table is a volunteer-run fair trade shop on the north side of the Liberty square. We buy directly from producer co-ops, most of them run by women, and we pay before the goods ship rather than after they sell. The building is donated, nobody here draws a wage, and what would otherwise be rent and payroll goes back into the next order.
That is the whole difference between this and a gift shop, and it is only worth anything if we can tell you exactly who made the thing in your hand.
Open days and where to find usFive co-ops account for most of the floor. Prices are the shelf prices in this mockup and are illustrative.
Backstrap-loom weaving from the highlands above Lake Atitlán. Table runners, market bags and the wide striped napkins that sell out first every November.
Runners $34 to $58. Napkins $14 each, $52 for four.
Jute, recycled sari silk and handmade paper, produced by eight enterprises employing women who came out of garment work. The nesting baskets and the folded card sets are theirs.
Baskets $22 to $61 by size. Card sets of eight, $16.
Sisal coil bowls and the flat woven plateaux, made by weaving circles that put women from both sides of the genocide in the same room. Each piece is signed on the underside.
Bowls $28 to $46. Wall plateaux $58 to $135.
Alpaca knitwear and ceramics from workshops around Lima and Ayacucho. Fingerless mitts and the heavy watch caps arrive in September and are usually gone by the first week of December.
Mitts $26. Watch caps $38. Scarves $54 to $72.
Lacquerware, bamboo and the small stitched pouches, from a Ho Chi Minh City enterprise that funds schooling for the children of its street-vendor members.
Pouches $12 to $19. Lacquer trays $30 to $64.
Fair trade is a claim about a supply chain, and a claim nobody can inspect is just a word on a sign. So here is the arithmetic on one item, start to finish.
| Where it goes | Amount |
|---|---|
| Paid to the weaver, before the goods shipped | $14.60 |
| Co-op operations, dyes and yarn | $4.90 |
| Freight, duty and the importing partner | $7.20 |
| Back into the next order placed by this shop | $7.30 |
Nothing on that list is rent, and nothing on it is a wage, because the building is donated and the shop is staffed by volunteers. That is the only reason the first line can be as large as it is.
Two open days is a fragile thing. If you are making a trip for something specific, call first and we will set it behind the counter with your name on it.