SAN FRANCISCO—The San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE) audited Verve Coffee Roasters for violating the city’s Health Care Security Ordinance, from Friday, July 1, 2022, to Monday, June 30, 2025, which Verve failed the San Francisco’s Health Care Safety Ordinance (HCSO) to give its employees’ health benefits, causing it to pay the city back in almost $200,000 in settlement.
In August 2025, Verve, a Santa Cruz-based coffeehouse, added a 5% service fee to customer’s checks, for full-time barista’s health benefits. However, employees said that there are only a few workers employed at Verve who are actually full-timers, receiving a lot of negative feedback. On Friday, September 5, 2025, Verve removed the 5% service charge, saying customers were confused by it.
On Monday, September 1, 2025, since employees at three Verve cafés, one in San Francisco and two in Santa Cruz, became dissatisfied with issues like pay, hours and benefits, they planned on unionizing.
On Wednesday, September 24, 2025, the employees at the Market Street location and other cafés voted unanimously to unionize with the United Food & Commercial Worker Union (UFCW) 5. On Monday, September 29, 2025, as part of an agreement with the union, Verve agreed to pay its employees. On Thursday, October 9, 2025, a settlement was reached with UFCW 5 for 33 Verve current and past employees,who had not been given health benefits.
On Thursday, October 16, 2025, Verve must pay a total of $184,000 and an additional penalty of $7,929 to San Francisco. As for individual employees, the amount varies from $400 to $20,000. Verve is required to pay back its present employees by Friday, October 31, 2025, and its past employees by Wednesday, December 31, 2025.
