Alice Cotton is a very excited these days, but also a little bit scared. The market coffee vendor and her partner Peter Stephenson have just signed a lease with the municipality of Tantramar for 200 square feet inside the Sackville Visitor Information Centre (VIC), where they will be opening Café Tintamarre this summer.
“It’s a big step for us to move from little vendors at the Farmers Market to having a cafe,” says Cotton. “We’re very excited.”
The new location will be seasonal, along with the VIC itself. Cotton says the couple is aiming to open the cafe when the VIC reopens for the season on May 1. Before that, there’s an estimated $4,500-$5,000 in plumbing, electrical, and flooring work to be done. In consideration of the leaseholds improvements that Cotton and Stephenson will make at their own expense, town staff recommended a nominal rent of $1 per month for their first season, from May 1 to December 31. If Café Tintamarre returns in 2025, then Cotton and Stephenson will pay similar rent to the other occupants at the VIC, the Craft Gallery and Robert Lyon Graphics.
Tantramar council approved of the lease proposal on April 9, with two councillors, Barry Hicks and Matt Estabrooks, voting against. Only Hicks explained his reasoning at the meeting, saying that while he liked “the idea of having coffee in the [VIC]… I don’t like the idea of having four other businesses right there handy that sell the same project.”
Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s are located about a half kilometre up the hill from the VIC on Mallard Drive, and Patterson’s Restaurant is located just 200 metres away.
Councillor Mike Tower noted that he had heard from residents excited to access the new cafe on foot from the Waterfowl Park, and Mayor Andrew Black suggested the operation would have a “spillover effect” helping bring people into the VIC. Councillor Josh Goguen said that he’s noted excitement among provincial EV owners because the cafe will be so close to NB Power’s latest fast chargers, which are installed but not yet activated in the VIC parking lot.
Cotton and Stephenson say their next steps are to design and renovate the space. “We’ve got to acquire all kinds of things,” says Cotton, noting that her partner is “very good at sourcing things secondhand and refurbishing stuff.”
Cotton and Stephenson have been operating their portable cafe, known as Deus Ex Macina, since October 2020. Over a year ago now, they acquired a small electric roaster and started selling their own roasts of Fair Trade beans imported by Just Us Coffee in Nova Scotia. This year, in addition to opening in the VIC, they are also refurbishing a Boler trailer-turned-cafe so they can continue serving customers on Saturday mornings, once the Sackville Farmers Market moves back to Bill Johnstone Park on May 4.
“We wouldn’t leave our favourite market,“ says Cotton, which may mean hiring part-time staff for the cafe, at least to cover Saturdays.
