Jonathon Liedtke – ourWindsor.ca – Feb. 20, 2013
The downtown core has secured a new tenant as The Windsor Star’s new downtown headquarters is poised for its News Cafe to be operated by the owners of The Green Bean Cafe.
Windsor Star publisher and editor-in-chief Marty Beneteau (@martybeneteau) announced via twitter that he was “stoked to announce that @GreenBeanCoffee has signed on to provide food and beverage in our News Cafe”.
“News cafes are popular in Europe, just catching on in N. America.” added Beneteau to Twitter, “Too many newsrooms in the burbs, so less viable. Our News Cafe will be unique in Canada. Winnipeg has one, but miles away from its newsroom.”
Excited to open up an additional store in the core, Michelle Davidson (who co-owns the Green Bean Cafe with her husband Ben Davidson) explained that she and her husband appreciated that the Windsor Star was seeking to “involve the community” and to “form a gateway between the community and [the Windsor Star]”.
The Green Bean Cafe is going to stay open in its current location and Davidson added that they had been “looking to expand to a second location … it was good timing.”
“We think it’s important to make where you live better,” stated Davidson who explained that they are hoping to connect the “people who live and work downtown with better access to the media … another place that people can come, relax and enjoy the downtown area.”
Coffee, espresso and some of the teas sold at the Green Bean Cafe are fair trade and or organic and Davidson explained that the company feels “like we have a responsibility to give people opportunity … everybody deserves to have the best life possible and if we could possibly facilitate someone somewhere to have a better life because of what we purchase, that’s important to us.”
Davidson isn’t concerned about competition, as she finds it to be a good thing. “We feel that anything which attracts people to one area is a good thing. Whether it’s our cafe or another cafe, it’s just good that people want to go to [an] area. Competition is important because it does more [for] the area … [it’s] good for business.”
“A definite bonus of not being a big-box is that we are able to establish relationships with a lot of people,” explained Davidson. ‘We have good relationships with our staff [who] know our regulars [and] we’re able to emphasize what we’d like to because we don’t have a parent company to tell us what they want to see. We can make decisions that work for our community and our current demographic.
News cafe tenant secured in Windsor Star building (ourwindsor.ca)
Jonathon Liedtke is the Features & Opinion Editor for the University of Windsor Lance Campus/Community Newspaper and a reporter for ourWindsor.ca. As a founding member and current Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee, he is committed to representing, connecting, engaging with and advocating for local youth. He is also a member of Windsor’s “Punk with Horns” band The Nefidovs, and as such, is committed to enhancing and sustaining the arts community.
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