One of the newest businesses in Carlyle, the Eight Words Café on Main Street, held a grand opening which spanned for an evening and the following morning recently.
The brainchild of Arcola mayor and entrepreneur Michael Ellis, Eight Words becomes Ellis' second coffee shop in the region, with his Arcola-based Michael's Coffee Shop and Bakery still open.
While Eight Words opened its doors to the public in mid-January, the actually grand opening for the establishment began with an in-house concert on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 27.
Performing that evening at 7 p.m. was folk musician Keith Kitchen.
Kitchen, who has a long-standing friendship with proprietor Michael Ellis, first met and befriended Ellis in Regina years before.
"I've always been a sort-of coffee-house-geek," Kitchen said with a grin. "When I was last speaking with Mike, and he was talking about this venture, I was really excited for him."
Kitchen, who calls Swift Current home these days, came down to take part in the Eight Words grand opening.
"I came down to Arcola back in October to give Mike a hand," Kitchen said. "When I was down, he was already talking about the project here in Carlyle."
"I told him I'd be happy to help out, and now here I am," Kitchen said. "Hopefully I can get the grand opening started in style."
Kitchen, who has two albums to his name, 'Brown Tree,' which was released in 2007, and 'Rumours of Light,' which was released in September of 2010, describes himself as a folk-roots musician, and proved that title to the crowd with the selections of music he played.
Between the tasty specialty coffees and the delicious cheese cakes, the crowd seemed quite pleased with the evening's offerings, and almost every seat in the house was filled.
The following morning, Ellis held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the café, with Carlyle mayor Don Shirley making the ceremonial snip of the scissors.
"I'm just really happy to see that people are responding and coming out to the shop," said Ellis. "It's my hope to provide a nice place for people to come, grab a bite to eat or a coffee, and enjoy a nice environment."
One of the signatures of both of Ellis' coffee shops is his choice to use Direct Trade coffee.
With global imbalances in wealth so stark, the Direct Trade coffee movement only purchases coffee directly from the producers, and then, only those producers who use fair and even employment practices with the employees.
This ensures that a more even level of distribution of the profits of the coffee market find their way to the producers who work to grow and harvest the beans that so many of us love.
