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• Artist Statement: Miriam Slager
• Artist Statement: Ordinary Collective
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A Nonprofit Cafe Grows in Ellsworth When the economic downturn hit Ellsworth, its 500 residents needed a gathering place, so a local church gave them one. by Jennifer Guerra Ann Arbor, MI The troubled economy has been especially unkind to the northern Michigan village of Ellsworth and the roughly 500 people who live there. The county's unemployment rate hovers around 16%. But when the last place to grab a bite in town closed, residents there came up with a novel plan:

The corner of Main Street and Center Street is considered downtown Ellsworth, and if you look around there are vacant storefronts everywhere. There's the old bait shop, that closed up a few months ago. Down the street is the Ellsworth Grocery and Deli, that shut down about a year ago. Even the used car lot is pretty empty: it has only got 4 cars for sale. So it's pretty quiet here in Ellsworth...until you step inside a place called the Front Porch Cafe.

On any given morning, you can find half the town sitting at the tables and booths inside. Some of them are here for the $5 breakfasts, some are here for a slice of homemade pie, and the group of old timers in the back have come in for coffee every morning ever since the Cafe opened last Fall.

Larry Essenberg admits they haven't always had it this good:

"I mean the bait shop served just coffee and pre-made stuff, I guess you'd call it. We got the leftover minnows."

You heard right. The bait shop. That's where they used to meet for coffee after the Ellsworth Diner closed early last year, and the Ellsworth Grocery and Deli a couple weeks after that.

Bob Felton says it "was just kind of depressing."

Felton is in charge of outreach at the local Christian Reformed Church. He said the town desperately needed a place where neighbors could catch up with one another, preferably over a decent cup of coffee and a cheap meal. So, he decided it was time for the church to get into the restaurant business:

"We have a joke at church - if you want to get people together, bring food."

Felton says when he presented the idea to people early on, "there were some who said, I would never start a restaurant any time, let alone in this kind of an economic climate. From our perspective that was the perfect time to do it."

The Front Porch Cafe is a non-profit and non-denominational restaurant.

Aside from the cook staff, everyone who works here is a volunteer: the waiters, busboys, hosts.

Bob Vollmer volunteers on Thursdays. He owns the used car lot across the street and says ever since the Cafe opened, people from all over Michigan have come through town:

"Two people from Charlevoix came over and had breakfast here, none of them had intended to buy a car that day. Wasn't the reason to come to Ellsworth, but by the end of the day they had come back each of them bought a car."

Nobody thinks one small non-profit Cafe and a couple used car sales can resuscitate a town like Ellsworth. Some say it could just be postponing the inevitable.

But John Hastings says the Cafe can make a difference. He's the town's undertaker and volunteers at the Cafe:

"When this place is closed, you could shoot a canon down the street."

The church-sponsored Cafe is open every day except, no surprise here, on Sundays. And yes, there's always homemade pie.