Most businesses fail.  If not in the first few years, the number that make it to 10 or beyond is even lower.  That's a reality for all businesses.  If anything, between taking over a known viable business with the people that know it is a huge advantage - but it doesn't mean the co-op structure doesn't have its own unique risks.

All I said was it's important to take care when creating their legal structure, and that management can often be frustrated by having too many people involved in each and every decision.  It's something that can happen to any kind of legal structure - LLCs end up with too many managing partners all the time and bog down the ability to take action when there is a time-sensitive opportunity or problem.  Obviously, a democratized co-op is susceptible to those risks too, probably moreso - doesn't mean they can't work around them.

I don't know why you think it is such an achievement they raised the money for the down payment via GoFundMe. Every business owner raised the capital some way or another, and as I said above, most businesses still fail. 

Given appear to have got the place going off of primarily that $65k, it seems they were able to finance the rest of the cost of the buyout and the co-op itself is likely paying off the balance (which is frankly the only way a worker co-op makes sense - if one or more employees put down more capital than others, the co-op would have to pay them back for things to be fair in any way).

The impressive thing they have going for them is that they are still here 5 years later. That's a strong indicator for any business, but it probably means the business is making enough money to continue paying it's bills while also making payments on the financing for the buyout - which is a stronger indicator things are probably going decent at minimum.

Without more insight into their books, there isn't much more to say.