New Halifax Library Cafe Chases Success, ‘But Not At The Cost Of Everybody Underneath Us’

HALIFAX—After almost two years with no in-house café, you can once again grab a coffee and a snack at the Halifax Central Library on Spring Garden Road.

The Ampersand Café opens on the library’s ground floor this week, just three weeks after a soft launch at its other, top-floor location.

The café takes over for Pavia, which ran ground- and fifth-floor cafés in the library until 2020 when it closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ampersand is run by MetroWorks, a not-for-profit dedicated to helping people overcome employment obstacles.

Rob MacIssac is MetroWorks’ food service manager. He works with the organization’s Stone Hearth Bakery, as well as Ampersand.

He says Ampersand has already exceeded his early expectations and that he’s excited for more people to learn about them.

The café sells a selection of freshly made soups, salads, sandwiches, desserts, and, of course, coffee.

“If you’re opening a café, you’ve gotta have good coffee, right? And we’ve got good coffee, from what everyone tells us,” MacIssac says.

That coffee comes from Nova Coffee, which is based out of the Annapolis Valley. Ampersand also serves desserts from Halifax business-of-the-year award winner, Delectable Desserts.

For the rest of its fare, the café will draw on MetroWorks’ bakery and catering services to offer soups made daily from scratch, salads, paninis, and even breakfast sandwiches in the morning.

MetroWorks’ Stone Hearth Bakery will also complement Ampersand’s dessert selection with cinnamon buns, pastries, and other sweet treats.

MacIssac says his goal is to offer fresh, top-quality food that costs less than you’d typically expect.

“We’re not charging you eight, nine, ten dollars for a sandwich, we’re charging you seven, or seven-fifty. We’re not charging you 10, 12 dollars for a goat cheese salad you’d see anywhere else, we’re charging you eight dollars,” he says.

“We kept the price point down like that because we need to be more accessible to more people,” MacIssac says.

Dave Rideout is the CEO of MetroWorks. He explains that the library has very diverse patronage and it’s important that Ampersand has something to offer all of them.

“[The library] wanted to make sure we could serve the south-ender that doesn’t mind spending $6 for a good coffee, but also ensure that we could serve those individuals that are housing insecure or financially insecure—that young mom who’s coming in here with a couple of kids with $5 in her pocket,” he says.

He says a big part of the reason they’re able, or willing, to sell their products at a lower-than-expected price is because they’re a social enterprise.

Social enterprises are essentially businesses that funnel most or all of their profits into charitable causes. In the case of Ampersand, the business’s profits are invested back into MetroWorks to support its programming.

Through its job readiness programs, MetroWorks helps build employment skills for new arrivals, people recovering from addictions and mental health challenges, and others facing barriers to employment.

Once it’s up and running, Ampersand will act as a training ground for those MetroWorks’ program participants.

MetroWorks will also work with the library on a gift card program that will let library staff give café gift cards to people who may be housing insecure or food insecure.

But while Ampersand is built on strong charitable intentions, Rideout is adamant that it is still a business first.

“At the end of the day, as a social enterprise, the most key piece is the enterprise piece,” he says. “We have to have the same quality, the same service standard, the same expectation that people expect in any coffee shop in the city.”

He believes Ampersand will help break apart the stereotype that social enterprises are more charities than businesses because it won’t be successful if people are only showing up out of a sense of duty.

“As a social enterprise, we get kind of tagged in that charity mode. Some people think, ‘well it’s not going to be as good as I expect but I want to support it.’ You get what you call a pity purchase. And sure, you might get one or two pity purchases, but that’s all you’re going to get.”

“So this is not about pity purchase, this is about you want a good cup of coffee, you want a good sandwich, you want a good salad, you want a good experience at a café, and that’s what you’re going to get here.”

Rebekah Halverson backs up Rideout’s claims.

Halverson is an experienced barista who learned the trade in coffee-obsessed Australia. She’s one of about 16 people MetroWorks has hired to work at Ampersand.

She says she “genuinely loves” working at the café and that Ampersand has “some of the best coffee” she’s tasted.

MacIssac says he’s hired mostly experienced industry professionals like Halverson to launch Ampersand. Once the café’s up and running, he’ll bring in MetroWorks program participants to learn from pros like Halverson.

Halverson says that mission is a large part of why she wanted to work at Ampersand and that she’s excited to pass on her knowledge as a mentor.

“I love being able to help and teach people and lead them to success. I’m excited to see where and how that goes,” she says.

MacIssac says he already sees opportunities for Ampersand to expand to more library branches, or even start catering to the city’s business crowd.

“The sky’s the limit, I think, in what we can put into this thing. And with our philosophy, we’re not corporate greed, we want to achieve success but it’s not at the cost of everybody underneath us.”

Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].