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closeA year ago, Ellsworth seemed in danger of dying.
Several small businesses had closed, and traffic into the northern Michigan town had dwindled. But when the village’s only cafe, the Ellsworth Diner, shut down in February 2008 and the only grocery store folded a month later, the loss was devastating.
Residents of the tiny community were left with no place of their own to buy groceries, have a meal or gather to talk and stay in touch.
“I would say people were pretty low on the town,” said Bob Felton, 42, outreach facilitator of Ellsworth Christian Reformed Church. “I think the attitude was, ‘We’re a victim of the economy.’ And a lot of people didn’t feel empowered to do much about it.”
But in a rare confluence of entrepreneurial thinking, interfaith cooperation and old-fashioned volunteerism, Ellsworth’s church and civic leaders and residents pulled together to create an unusual business: a community-run, nonprofit cafe called the Front Porch. Only a handful in the country are known to use its economic model.
Volunteers make up most of the staff. The home-style food is cooked from scratch. Portions are generous, and prices on the new pay-what-you-can menu top out at $5 for the largest breakfast and lunch plates.
FOUR CAFES CLOSE IN DECADE
It began with Felton.
As he watched the Ellsworth Diner become the fourth cafe in 10 years to fail in the modest, white storefront building on Main Street, he thought about how hard it was to run a profitable restaurant in such a small town — but how important one was to the community.
At first, he suggested that his church buy the vacant diner and run it for the benefit of the community, “but they kind of looked at me like I was crazy,” he said. Some thought opening a restaurant wasn’t a good idea at any time, and certainly not in a bad economy.
“But my thinking was, this is the perfect time for the kind of restaurant I’m thinking of — the kind that brings the community together, one that isn’t really interested in making money for itself,” he said.
Realizing it needed the backing of more than one or two churches, he enlisted the support of community leaders, including Mary Peterson, the influential head of the nonprofit Good Samaritan Family Services in Ellsworth. She had long wanted a senior center for the town and saw how the cafe could help meet that need.
By late June 2008, a small core of respected business, civic and religious leaders had come together, incorporated as the Front Porch Ministries and elected a board of directors with Felton as chair and Peterson as vice chair.
The building’s owner, meanwhile, had offered a generous deal: $110,000 for the building; his forgiveness of $10,000 to start, $10,000 down (which was borrowed from a supporter) and the remainder in two payments over five years.
More churches got involved. And townspeople pitched in to help paint, scrub and repair the old diner for its public debut — an Aug. 2 open house and breakfast buffet fundraiser.
The response was overwhelming. About 250 people turned out, consumed more than 45 dozen eggs and untold amounts of baked goods, and contributed more than $3,000 to open the cafe that Labor Day weekend.
VOLUNTEER OVERTIME
Only cook and manager Jan Rasmussen, three other full-time cooks and one part-time baker are paid. The dishwashers, servers and hosts and hostesses are volunteers who work when they can.
Rasmussen — who also produces the cafe’s beautiful meringue-topped cream pies — somehow keeps the place running with a core group of only 12 to 15 regular volunteers. They range from high school students to a couple of men in their 80s.
It isn’t easy; staffing is “an ongoing struggle,” said Felton.
Louise Klooster, who bakes the cafe’s famous cinnamon rolls, is paid for 10 hours a week, but also volunteers.
“I don’t know how many hours I put in unpaid, but I feel fortunate being part of this,” she said as she prepared to make peach cobblers with a half-bushel of fruit donated by a local farmer. “I think this place is so cool.”
Laura Seaney, a single mother laid off from her job 11 months ago, says “the diner saved my life.” Depression was consuming her as she looked in vain for a new job, but after Rasmussen nagged her into volunteering at the diner, she said, she found a reason to leave the house.
For Sue Tillotson, a retired teacher, “It’s not about the money. It’s the companionship.” She works the breakfast shift and greets practically everyone who walks in by name.
Felton looks back on the cafe’s first year with gratitude and satisfaction.
“There were a lot of people on our first anniversary who came to me and said, ‘You know, I just didn’t think this was going to be anything. It would be just a flash in the pan and disappear,’ ” he said. “But now they’re saying, ‘I see it, and I believe it.’ ”
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