The owner of one of Lacombe’s oldest cafés, Kavaccino’s (5028 51st) has been inspired to get creative over the past couple of weeks while we all adjust to the ‘new pandemic reality’.
Sarah Starke has been drawing ‘hidden picture puzzles’ of all of Lacombe’s historical landmarks. So far, she has completed one of the Flat Iron Building, Michener House, and currently, she is working on another that includes the Five of Diamonds lure at the Len Thompson Pond.
Starke says she’s got a bit of experience drawing hidden object pictures.
“Well to be honest, I started drawing it because one night I was sitting at home with my sketchpad trying to figure out what to draw and I started doodling local landmarks. I used to draw hidden picture puzzles for a youth group newspaper that my youth group put out in high school and so I just started putting little things in it and I went ‘that’s kind of neat, I’ll put this on Facebook’,” Starke explained.
To check out these pictures, click here.
The café owner explained that she has an affection for older style architecture and historical buildings.
“I love old stuff. My husband and I, when we were looking for a house here had to talk me out of buying a charming fixer-upper that he described as a crumbled-down dump, but it had all the 100-year old framing and hardly any insulation.”
Starke has just celebrated her second year of owning Kavaccino’s in early March and has managed to update a few of the elements of the building but still desires to keep a lot of the café’s old-style charm.
“We’re trying to fix up Kavacinno’s while still keeping it old fashioned looking. We don’t know exactly how old it is because wherever we’ve gone, they have no file on this property. We’re estimating the building is around 100 years old,” explained Starke.
In the midst of the pandemic, Starke was also inspired to create toilet paper cakes which are becoming a bit of a local hot commodity.
“At the beginning of this whole pandemic, everybody was buying up all the toilet paper and it was kind of crazy for a couple of weeks. We got really slow, of course, because everyone was panicking a little bit. We went, ‘seeing as all anyone wants to buy is toilet paper,’ (we made toilet paper cakes),” said Starke adding, “I’ve been doing about four toilet paper cakes a week, since then. Not a huge amount but here and there. They make people laugh. They’re tasty cakes, so I’m glad people are getting them.”
As for business during a pandemic, Starke says it’s been a bit of a struggle but through a few adjustments she’s been able to increase her customer base a little bit.
“It’s definitely slower than it was, obviously we’re a coffee shop people aren’t really getting together and going out for coffee. We’ve added a lot of take out and take-n-bakes and expanded catering and packages of things,’ and that’s helping a bit,” said Starke.
Slower times have meant spending a bit of extra time making changes and starting new endeavours for the café.
“We can’t do everything because we just don’t have the equipment for it but we’re getting a lot of projects started and items added that I was sort of thinking well at some point we’ll add some homemade bread, and at some point, we’ll add, jars of jam, whatever else. Now we’re starting to actually get those things done because there’s a little bit of extra time and people want things that they can take with them and just go back home,” explained Starke.
Additionally, Starke will continue to plan a bit of celebration for her second year of ownership which was inevitably postponed by the pandemic.
“(We’ll have) a little get together we’re going to host a bunch of before and after pictures of all the things we’ve done so far this year. We’ve sort of been gradually fixing things up, replacing things that are broken. One thing at a time, I don’t think you really notice the changes unless you’re staring at what it was and what it is now.”
Fri, Apr 26, 7:00 PM
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