Emmett Soldati deals with more than hot beverages and scones behind the scenes of Concord’s Totally Tea + Coffee, formerly named Teatotaller.
His more recent escapades transcend into a world of cameras, scripts and a lens focused on years of his battle against his personal Goliath: Facebook.
In 2018, the official Teatotaller Instagram account was deleted “without notice,” Soldati said. He filed a small claims case against Facebook, which owns Instagram, in Dover Small Claims Court. According to court documents, he alleged that Facebook deleted the Instagram account and gave contradicting statements as to the reason for deletion. He also stated that Teatotaller was losing business because of this, facing repercussions without reason.
When it was deleted, there was sort of no warning; it just was deleted,” said Soldati, who was told the deletion occurred because of a violation of the terms of service. “It had the twofold effect of we lost all of those thousands of relationships that we had built through followers. New Hampshire is a small state, so having a couple thousand followers, that’s the whole community.”
After the court initially dismissed the case, he brought his plight to the NH Supreme Court in 2020 and won. Then, he returned to the Dover Small Claims Court and prevailed in his original case in 2023.
Facebook was found liable for breaching its contract. He received only a couple hundred dollars in compensation.
The cafe’s account was not restored.
The eatery, situated right on Main Street, isn’t hard to miss. The fuchscia walls stand out against surrounding standard brick buildings. Inside is home to a number of pastries, boba drinks, breakfast and lunch foods, vegan soft serve ice cream and more. He intentionally frames his space, often seen as an LQBTQ+ friendly oasis, to be openly inclusive of all genders, identities, and sexualities.
Soldati, who represented himself in court, felt that winning his case was a step toward empowering individuals who might feel powerless to challenge large corporations, facing an uphill battle similar to his situation.
Now, he is two years into making a documentary about it.
“That is a largely very isolating experience,” he said of his social media fight. “I think millions of people experience it, and yet they don’t do anything about it because they think there’s nothing to be done,” he said.
He said that telling his story in a way that contrasts Facebook’s sterile, corporate environment with Totally Tea + Coffee’s colorful environment would create interesting scenes and aesthetics on the big screen.
His message surpasses incorporating intentional aesthetics, however.
“This film is definitely for anybody who has confronted the really frustrating bureaucracy that is living in the modern social media landscape of any time something goes wrong or there’s a glitch, or your account gets suspended or deleted, and there seems to be no recourse,” he said. “There’s no customer support. There’s no ability to do anything.”
Soldati was initially approached by a production company interested in the history-making of his court case. The project had just begun to evolve when the company changed course to focus on other endeavors. However, Soldati chose to persist.
Now in the midst of pre-production and development with a whole crew on board, Soldati is preparing to shoot this coming spring and into the summer. The film is fiscally sponsored by Film Forum, a nonprofit indie theatre based in New York City. This means the project can raise donations and apply for grants that require a nonprofit recipient without being a nonprofit itself.
For his small independent film, Soldati is aiming for a budget of 200k.
His creativity isn’t all that has evolved.
Soldati originally opened his first cafe in Somersworth in 2001 under the name Teatotaller. Two other locations subsequently sprouted up: one in Dover, and one in Concord. Now only the Concord cafe remains, with its updated name and bright pink signage.
“It has such an interesting contrast. Like on the one hand, you have my cafe, which is very zany and colorful and eccentric and queer and flamboyant, and then you have on the other side, Facebook, which is just like the literal largest social media company on Earth. It’s like this monolithic, massive corporation,” Soldati said.
Soldati started his film project in 2024 and hopes to finish next year after shooting. He intends to show it at theaters and film festivals.
He seeks to inspire people to recognize that if they have been wronged in some way, they have a voice that can and will be heard.
“I hope that it inspires people to recognize that if they don’t have to just sort of sit back and accept something if they think they’ve been wronged in some way,” Soldati said.
