Jacob Aginsky is a musician. So for him, it’s natural to run his café the way he’d run a band.

“In a band, everyone pulls their weight,” he says on the line from Theresa’s on Commercial Drive. Each member, from the guy who hits the cowbell to the lead singer, contributes to the end result.

Likewise, at Theresa’s, it’s not just Aginsky who runs the show. “The dishwasher is not a glamorous position, but if they [the dishes] don’t get washed, there’s nothing to put the food on,” he says.

So when Aginsky bought out his partners and took sole control of the café a year and a half ago, he decided to make it into a co-op. Turning over control of the operations to the staff, he instituted a profit-sharing system. “It’s sort of a cute socio-art project with a scary debt hanging underneath it,” Aginsky says. “Basically what I’m doing is shouldering the debt for this crew.”¦They’re the ones doing the work, so they should generate the profits from it.” With a laugh, he adds, “Did I mention that I come from a long line of communists?”

Walking the Drive at a fast clip, one might stride right by the narrow storefront of Theresa’s. Three years ago when Aginsky and his partners bought it from Theresa Yee, the name of the café was Urban City, “but everyone called it Theresa’s.” They gave the laid-back breakfast concept an update. Fair-trade coffee now flows, and eggs are free-range and organically produced. Basic house-made soups, sandwiches, and desserts are also on the menu, but breakfast reigns and, according to Aginsky, feeds a lot of hangovers.

I stopped by Theresa’s early one Sunday morning (not hung-over) and left quite pleased. Choices are basic—mostly variations on the bacon-and-eggs (or tofu scramble) theme—but creative touches make them more interesting. The wheat-free ginger-orange pancakes ($4), made with rice flour and cornmeal, are a riff on Deep South hoecakes. Fresh avocado slices or wild lox come with some of the combos, as do “home fries”, which don’t resemble fries at all—they’re cubed potatoes that are oven-roasted with whole cloves of garlic.

Garlic at breakfast? This caught me off guard but was mellow enough to work, infusing the potatoes with a fabulous flavour. In my Hastings breakfast ($8), two utterly perfect orbs of softly poached eggs rested beside the potatoes, along with good-quality sausages and toast that had been buttered as gleefully as my grandmother used to, freed from war rations.

My husband’s stuffed French toast was so delicious I tried to convince him to donate part of it to me for dessert. Sweet-toothers will love it: airy cream cheese emulsified with strawberry preserves between two pieces of French toast, panini-pressed and served with more preserves.

You can find cheaper breakfasts, but Theresa’s vies for the most reasonably priced high-quality breakfast award. You can’t beat $4.50 for that brilliant French toast. I just wish they didn’t charge $1 for coffee refills.

Aginsky says quick turnover keeps prices low. Theresa’s definitely isn’t a place to linger. Service and décor are stripped to the basics: order at the counter, serve yourself coffee, bus your own table. A sign on the wall reads, “You may also be asked to share a table, and, if you linger long enough, may be invited to enjoy a walk on our beautiful Commercial drive.”

Staff aren’t unfriendly, though. All 10 members have a stake in the place. “A co-op can mean many different things,” Aginsky explains. “For us, everyone who works here owns a share, and everyone who owns a share works here.” Each person has his or her strengths, but all know how to make espresso, do the cash, even cook. Most of the time, Aginsky is on tour as a keyboardist for hire, but when in town he does dishes like everyone else.

Decisions are made jointly. “We’re not crazy enough to go unanimous, but we definitely go majority,” Aginsky says. Sometimes he’s voted down; he wanted to offer soymilk lattes, for example, but they went with almond milk ones instead because of the staff’s concerns about genetically modified soybeans.

In these tight times, is there any profit for the staff to share? Aginsky says they’re actually doing quite well, with sales up from last year. (He speculates that it’s because Theresa’s is relatively inexpensive: “We didn’t want to make it a place where people had to think twice to eat here.”) And there’s been very low staff turnover since they went co-op.

But despite the communal spirit at Theresa’s, don’t expect your dining companion to share any of that French toast.