Sea & Soil
September 23, 2026 / Photo: Courtesy of seaandsoilcoop.com
This worker-owned sandwich shop empowers both its employees and customers with a sliding-scale pricing model and locally-made menu items.
Noah Wolf wanted to pursue a worker-owned enterprise after spending years in the culinary industry and becoming disillusioned with its traditional top-down structure. He experimented with several iterations on the idea before deciding on a sandwich shop.
“I wanted to be able to cook for as many folks as possible and involve all the dimensions of the kitchen,” he said. “This is what led me to pursue the idea of a sandwich shop. A food that could highlight the bread baking process, provide a vehicle for a host of creative cooking techniques, and offer opportunities for more accessible pricing models, to the best degree we are able.”
After moving from LA to NYC 2015, he met Gaby Gignoux-Wolfsohn, another like-minded industry vet intent on subverting the industry's norms. Together they forged the foundation for what would become the accessible, worker-owned shop Sea & Soil, which officially opened its first brick and mortar space in 2023.
Sea & Soil offers a rotating menu of homemade seasonal sandwiches, salads, and breads. They source their ingredients based on a two-pronged approach — prioritising how affordable they can make their items, while looking to support local food systems.
“We are so busy, it's hard for us to get to the farmers market ourselves unfortunately. However we are lucky to have a number of options,” Wolf explained. “Our daily purveyor Chefs Warehouse actually works with a range of local farms in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. We turn to them frequently for produce. But of course our preference is to support smaller farms and distribution networks where possible — our favorite is M-W Produce which is a tiny operation dedicated to getting incredible seasonal fruits and veggies from farmers to the people.”
The shop’s unique pricing and employment models allows them to make their food as accessible as possible, while empowering the people who maintain the business.
“We simply believe food is a human right and that includes the ability to go out and have a delicious, healthy sandwich no matter what your income level,” Wolf said. “When it comes to worker-ownership, it grows out of our foundational belief that any person who dedicates themselves to the business through their labor, their spirit, their creativity on an ongoing basis deserves the right to have a share in the business both through a democratic decision-making process, and through an egalitarian distribution of dividends if and when they occur.”
Though the shop faces the same challenges as other eateries, and their model may not always be the easiest to maintain, Wolf, Gignoux-Wolfsohn, and fellow worker/owner Nilda Ortiz believe that it is just as sustainable and a much more impactful means of running a business.
Sea & Soil recently began offering a beer and wine list — the latter of which has been expertly curated by Wolf’s sister. They serve pizza every Friday night, which is also crafted by hand with local ingredients, and also offer catering options. You can visit them in Boerum Hill and learn more about their menu and work here.
