Woodstock Cafe Set to Close, With Statement from Manager Andre Gray

Woodstock Cafe, also known as the Sign Language Cafe, at 4103 SE Woodstock Blvd (half a mile away from campus), is a project of the Portland-based nonprofit organization CymaSpace which specializes in using cymatic technology to transform sound into visual art. According to the founder of CymaSpace, Myles de Bastion, the cafe “make[s] cultural events accessible to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.” The Deaf-ran Woodstock Cafe organizes regular events to cater to the Deaf community, including ASL Game Night, ASL Trivia Night, and Sign Squad. In addition, Reed’s own ASL Club has often worked in partnership with the cafe, hosting student social events in the space and promoting the cafe’s community events. The cafe re-opened as a project of CymaSpace in December of 2023. On Tuesday, March 3, 2026, the cafe posted to their Instagram the statement “We rather braid water… than deprive our community,” noting that the management of Woodstock Cafe is being told that “the Woodstock Cafe program shall discontinue, with doors closing March 8, 2026 at the end of Sandwich Week. A cueless decision about a Deaf space that was never meant to exist for us in the first place.” 

When the Quest reached out to manager Andre Gray for more information, we received the following statement:

“Since before we ever unlocked the doors or started shadow training our team, we were studying the landscape, trying to find our niche in a competitive coffee market. We thought survival meant comparison. We thought we had to compete to justify our existence.

Then we opened our doors in April 2024.

We saw the eyes of our ASL and Deaf community. We felt what this space actually meant. And in that moment, it became clear we were never meant to be just another coffee shop fighting for market share. We are not here to siphon customers from our neighbors. We are a community space. A small, protected corner of the world crafted by the same hands that braid water and speak American Sign Language. This place was built from culture, from lived experience, from love.

We started with over forty thousand dollars in deficit and worked it down to twelve. Not because it was comfortable, but because we refused to let it collapse. 

Our cafe manager gives more than one hundred hours a week to this vision while earning less than he did at his previous dishwashing job. Paid team members have chosen on their own to volunteer hours just to keep payroll under one hundred thirty hours a week so we could keep the doors open. That is not a business strategy. That is commitment.

Spaces like this were never designed into the blueprint of this world for Deaf people. The world was not built around us or for us. We are a minority within minorities, often invisible even in conversations about equity. And still, we built something anyway.

As of lately, we have to share something heavy: 

The CymaSpace Acting Executive Director has expressed the desire to discontinue the Woodstock Cafe program, and the doors are scheduled to close at the end of Sandwich Week on March 8, 2026.

The first signs came quietly. Our pastry partner was affected in a way that felt strategic, almost like a test of whether we were strong enough to remain. Whether we were good enough to exist. Now the conversation has moved from pressure to closure.

But watch us clearly.

We would rather braid water than deprive our community of a space that was never meant to exist for us in the first place. We would rather struggle honestly than step aside quietly. Braiding water means doing the impossible with the tools we have. It means shaping something beautiful out of what the world says cannot be held. That is what this café has always been.

We do not believe the answer to hardship is disappearance. We do not believe the response to pressure is surrender. Our community deserves more than that. Deaf people deserve spaces created by and for us. Underserved people deserve spaces that do not ask us to shrink.

If this space has meant something to you, now is the time to stand with us. Not out of sympathy, but out of solidarity. Not because we are fragile, but because we are worth fighting for.

We deserve to exist. And we are not ready to let this corner of the world disappear without a battle.

Thank you for standing with us, speaking up and sharing what our community center means to you, your family and friends.

Andre Gray, Cafe Manager for the Woodstock Cafe Team

P.S. Stay tuned for updates!”

In an additional Instagram post on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, the Woodstock Cafe posted the following statement:

“WTF HAPPENED 

Why isn’t the board doing anything about this?

There are seven board members, yet voting has become an issue.

The board lead has not fully opened ways for all members to participate. That’s exclusion, a deprivation of voice and opinion.

Instead, meetings move forward with limited input, while decisions affecting the café and other programs stall.

And let’s be clear:

This was a single person’s decision.

Closing a program like this requires a full board vote. Period.

No single calendar, schedule, or selective meeting can replace the responsibility of the entire board.

Handpicking who can attend meetings to match one person’s availability isn’t leadership, it’s gatekeeping.

It narrows the conversation, silences dissent, and shapes outcomes before the full board can even speak.

Our café is not just a program.

It fuels community, supports our mission, and generates resources that sustain the work.

We want to keep it open for all.

Major decisions like closure must include every board member’s voice, email vote, proxy vote, emergency meeting, whatever it takes.

Because one person cannot close what an entire community helped build.”

Two hours after this feed post was made, a correction was issued on their Instagram story stating:

“Correction total of Nine

9 board members”

Gray urges concerned community members to demand an “all hands vote now email, proxy, whatever works” to the board at CymaSpace. To get in contact, CymaSpace’s website directs “general inquiries” to the email address info@cymaspace.org. Email addresses of specific board members may be found on the “Our Team” page of the CymaSpace website, and organization President de Bastion can be reached at myles@cymaspace.org. For more updates on the cafe itself, follow their Instagram page @woodstockcafepdx and a newly created linked page (albeit with minimal profile details so far) @braidingwater. Woodstock Cafe’s Instagram also has a link in their bio to donate in order to keep the cafe open, which will be linked in the online version of this article. 

If you want to visit to support the cafe before its planned closure, make sure to do so on or before its last day, Sunday, March 8. Their hours for the remainder of this week and weekend will be 7am-9pm today (Friday), and 8am-8pm on Saturday and Sunday.