Beloved Bed-Stuy Bike Shop Becomes Worker-Owned Cooperative

‍PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2026

Beloved Bed-Stuy Bike Shop Becomes Worker-Owned Cooperative

Worker-Owners, Local Electeds, and Community Members Celebrate Bike Plant’s Transition to Worker Ownership at Ribbon Cutting. 

Brooklyn, NY, Bike Plant, a neighborhood bike shop that has served Bedford-Stuyvesant since 2021, today marked its transition to worker ownership with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by NYC Commissioner of Small Business Services Dynishal Gross, State Senator Jabari Brisport, City Council Member Chi Ossé, cooperative development partners, and many supportive neighbors and long-time customers.

Bike Plant is known both for the caring quality service that they provide and for a commitment to inclusively serving the local community. Since 2022, the shop has maintained a mutual-aid repair fund that has provided more than $50,000 in donated refurbished bikes and free or subsidized repair services to neighborhood cyclists and migrants in need. Now, with the transition to worker-ownership, the responsibility for carrying forward the shop’s social mission while also keeping the doors open will be shared amongst the five full-time mechanics, as will any profits.

As a worker cooperative, each full-time mechanic now owns an equal share of the business and is entitled to an equal vote on high-level decisions such as approving budgets, business plans, and company policies. Worker-owners who leave the shop are required to sell their share back to the company and new hires can become eligible for co-ownership after two years on the job. 

“We’ve always run the shop collaboratively,” said Robin Graven-Milne, Bike Plant’s founder and formerly the sole-owner, now one of the worker-owners, “It’s been a long term goal to formalize that collaboration, set up a co-op, and sell the majority of my ownership stake to my  colleagues who have helped make this place what it is. Running a business can be hard and scary, but also deeply rewarding, and I couldn’t imagine a better team to share that with.”
“This transition has given me a sense of job security I never had in any bike shop where I worked in the past,” said Lydia Moore, one of Bike Plant’s Worker-Owners, “I’m eager to learn more about being a business owner while navigating this new commitment with my fellow bike mechanics and comrades at Bike Plant.”

Pro bono technical assistance for Bike Plant’s co-op transition was provided by the ICA Group, one of more than a dozen non-profits funded through the City Council’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative, administered by Small Business Services, to help grow NYC’s worker cooperative sector. The conversion process, which took more than a year, involved conducting a financial and operational feasibility assessment, securing financing for the transition, educating workers about the cooperative model, and working with those workers to design the specifics of the co-op’s governance and management structures. Pro bono legal support was provided by the Community Economic Development Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services who drafted all the documentation needed to complete the transition.

"The outcry of customers following the loss of a valuable neighborhood business is unfortunately a too-familiar lament," said New York City Department of Small Business Services Commissioner Dynishal Gross. "Now consider the deep investment that small business employees have in those entities' operation and survival. Today's conversion means that at Bike Plant, the entity now matches the ethos. The workers and owners of Bike Plant are now one and the same, and they will steer the destiny of this bike shop, realizing their collective vision for business operation and growth that benefits their families and the community. SBS is delighted to see this impact of the Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative in action and hope this example inspires other teams to consider conversion. Congratulations to Robin, Lydia, Rae, Sean, and Bahar!"

“If you own a small business in NYC, or even if you just work for one, you should know that there are free resources out there to help explore and support a conversion to worker-ownership,” said Mike Sandmel, Senior Strategist for Worker Ownership at the ICA Group. “Bike Plant provides a great example of how the co-op model can be used to bring the formal structure of a socially-minded business into alignment with its mission and culture. However, this model can be great for all kinds of companies, including those with an owner considering retirement and succession options that protect the legacy they’ve built and reward the loyalty of their employees.”

"We are thrilled to be a part of Bike Plant’s reopening and transition to a worker cooperative," said Rafaela Varela, a supervising attorney in the Community and Economic Development Unit at Brooklyn Legal Services. "Since the pandemic, we have seen many workers take their businesses into their own hands. They see the profits, decide how to share them, and control their workplace together. This is why Brooklyn Legal Services' work supporting small businesses and worker cooperatives is so important---we help ensure our neighbors can have work they are proud of, that they're paid a living wage, and help create jobs that keep this city affordable."

For Bedford-Stuyvesant, where small businesses play a critical role in neighborhood life, Bike Plant’s conversion represents more than a change in ownership structure—it is an investment in long-term community stability.

“In neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, worker-owned cooperatives help protect small businesses from displacement while strengthening our local economy,” said City Council Member Chi Ossé. “They reflect what’s possible when workers have genuine ownership and a vested interest in their future. I’m incredibly proud to celebrate Bike Plant’s transition to a worker-owned cooperative. It will build shared wealth, preserve local ties in our community, and strengthen a more sustainable Brooklyn.”

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