Patrons of the Ithaca Farmers’ Market will now have to find alternatives to Gimme! Coffee for their future market visits. After a seven-year tenure as a popular market vendor, Gimme! Coffee stopped selling at the IFM on Oct. 11. The impetus for Gimme! Coffee’s departure was the inability of Kevin Cuddeback, Gimme! Coffee’s manager and CEO, to be present for 25 percent of market days — a violation of an IFM rule stated in its charter.

Despite Gimme! Coffee’s popularity in Ithaca and at the farmers’ market, the IFM’s Board of Directors and some of the other 183 vendors involved with the market complained that the attendance rules were being overlooked for Gimme! Coffee.

The Board of Directors administered several warnings to Gimme! Coffee but ultimately had to ask Gimme! to leave. “It was a big issue here for a while. We did not kick Gimme! out, and we were sad to see them leave. But we gave them a choice to follow the rules or leave,” said Cathy Koken, manager of the Ithaca Farmers’ Market.

A representative for Gimme! Coffee could not be reached for comment, but according to Cuddeback’s blog post on the company website, Gimme! Coffee decided to leave because “The Board of Directors recently decided that strict enforcement of the rule [requiring managers to be present for 25 percent of market days] is in the best interest of the Market.” Cuddeback maintained that he was unable to satisfy this rule because of his “other responsibilities with Gimme!” which include managing individual locations and the company.

Fellow vendor Elizabeth Marland of Sunrise Samosas, a stall that sells specialty fritters and coffee, noted that Cuddeback’s busy schedule made it difficult for him to abide by this particular market rule. “Kevin’s a wonderful person and he’s got a lot of things going on. But in fairness, he had a choice,” Marland said. By naming another associate as a “manager,” Marland noted that Cuddeback could have avoided this issue.

Some shoppers seem confused as to why Gimme! Coffee was pressured to leave. “I love Gimme! and I think they were a great part of the market,” said Helen Giles ’13, an Ithaca resident.

As of now, it does not seem that Gimme’s decision to leave has had a significant effect on the number of visitors or on the revenue of the market, according to Koken. Many shoppers at the farmers market seem to have found other alternatives to Gimme! “I’ve been to the IFM a few times before and have bought Gimme! Coffee there. I’ll still go, I just will buy my Gimme! on campus,” Dan Farchione ’13 said.

While she thinks it is certainly a loss to the market, Koken believes that Ithaca residents and students will still shop in similar ways because of the, “wide variety of high quality vendors [at the market].” Partly in response to Gimme! leaving, some vendors are adjusting the types of coffee they sell. Some vendors will continue to sell “the regular Maxwell House varieties,” said Marland, “but we will start to offer more varieties of coffee in addition to our self-roasted Indian blends to make up for what Gimme! provided.”

Gimme! Coffee currently has three locations in Upstate New York, on State and Cayuga Streets in Ithaca and in Trumansburg, as well as two locations in New York City: Manhattan and Brooklyn. Gimme! Coffee is available on Cornell’s campus at Manndible Café and is sold at Green Star Market in Ithaca as well as several shops in Ithaca and New York City.