Q:Ace, while grabbing a bite to eat at everywhere from Michael’s Bistro to McDonald’s I’ve noticed a paper called Coffee News in distribution bins. It’s not exactly “news” and it’s not exactly about coffee, so what’s the deal? Has it been around long? And what purpose does it serve?—Sugar Ann Milkie
A: Sugar Ann, sit down, have a cup of Joe, and in the age-old words of Ace’s favorite jumpsuit-clad Long Island housewife, Linda “I’m-Getting-a-Little-Verklempt” Richman, “We’ll have cawfee. We’ll tawk. No big whoop.” The latté-hued weekly “paper” to which you refer is ubiquitous these days, distributed in 84 area restaurants. That makes Coffee News’ business look like buttah.
But go to another town with, say, a population of approximately 50,000 and you might find a Coffee News twin. That’s right, the publication is a franchise that brings the same features we’ve come to know and love in our own Coffee News to communities the world over. So even when you’re on vacation you can still catch up on features from Quoteable [sic] Quotes to Everybody’s Talking, the section packed with important news stories like “Pampered pussy,” about a lady who bought a mansion for stray cats, then hired them a full-time maid and butler.
But first and foremost, Coffee News is an advertising outlet that only incidentally distracts your eyes from that hottie by the bar. Discouraged by what she saw as the lack of reasonably priced advertising for small local businesses, Winnipeg resident Jean Daum published the first Coffee News in 1982. She sold cheap ads to suffering businesses and claims this endeavor almost single-handedly revitalized her community’s recessed economy. Daum thus expanded her venture into a franchise in 1988 and now pronounces Coffee News “the ultimate recession buster” on the website www.coffeenewsusa.com. Ace suspects she’s been drinking lots of highly caffeinated lattés.
Enter Matt Peach, a New Jersey transplant who moved to Charlottesville in 2002 in search of self-employment. He found Coffee News online and liked what he saw. “[Coffee News franchises] do well in small to mid-sized communities and…it provides upbeat news and gives front-page ads to small business,” he says when asked why the venture appealed to him. By February 2002, Peach and his wife were receiving copy from headquarters, designing and laying out the ads, adding original copy and distributing the paper locally.
While Peach admits “Charlottesville is a tough market…[with] about 20 other newspaper machines” out there, he estimates his product pulls in 16,000 to 18,000 readers a week, which is a pretty big whoop for Coffee News advertisers.
So until next week, talk amongst yourselves. Ace will give you a topic: Coffee News is neither coffee nor news. Discuss!