the carrot arts community coffeehouse 118 avenue alberta edmonton coffee cafe canada sprudge

Across the street from a pawn shop and a new Somalian restaurant, just down the block from a bar called The Green Frog, painter Glen Ronaldโ€™s studio, and a salon specializing in braids and extensions, sitsย The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse. Located on 118th Avenue in Edmonton, Alberta, this space is the flagship project for a neighborhood revitalization effort in progress now for more thanย a decade. At a time when trendy cafes are often early signs of gentrification, The Carrot signals the opposite type of movement in the Alberta Avenue areaโ€”one that prioritizesย community integration and maintaining diversity. The cafeโ€™s ethos is neatlyย summed up byย the canvas hanging above the bar, with a huge orange carrot and a quotation from the artist Paul Cรฉzanne: โ€œTheย dayย is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.โ€

the carrot arts community coffeehouse 118 avenue alberta edmonton coffee cafe canada sprudge

A rotating staff of over 50 volunteer baristas serves up Intelligentsia Coffee pulled from a three-group La Marzocco Linea Classic or simply brewed in an automatic drip machine. Despite the casual nature of the position (many volunteers put in only a few hours every month), every one of them is trained to tamp, level, and steam milk to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and someย even master latte art. In addition to coffee, chai, hot chocolate, and Mighty Leaf Tea, customers can tryย sandwiches and pastries from several local companies, including Passion de France, a halal bakery just a few blocks down 118th Avenue (aka Alberta Avenue), whose owner often walks overย hisย delivery of scones and apple turnovers still warm from the oven.

Low, comfortable chairs by the windows, couches in the back corner next to a shelf stocked with toys and childrenโ€™s books, and a combination of individual and communal tables surrounded by mismatched chairs provide customers with opportunities to take a few minutes toย themselves, do some work, hold meetings, entertain their kids, orย chat with friends. When the weather warms up, patio tables are set up on the sidewalk out front, and around the corner you can often find someone playing the purple piano that sits outside.

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the carrot arts community coffeehouse 118 avenue alberta edmonton coffee cafe canada sprudge

The Carrot also acts as a gallery and point of sale for many local artists and craftspeopleโ€”display cases next to the till hold everything from jewelry to blown glass and sock puppets, while leather bags and canvases hang on the walls. Arts on the Ave, an organization dedicated to rehabilitating the neighborhood by facilitating the arts, uses the coffeehouse as a command station; itโ€™s a rare day whenย at least one of their members isnโ€™t working from a table in the corner or meeting with a city councilperson or setting up for a fundraiser.

Though it opens at 9 a.m. and thus, misses much of the typical rush of caffeine-dependent commuters on their way to work,ย The Carrotโ€™s hours are designed toย accommodate residents of the neighborhood around Alberta Avenue: parents with young children, retirees, freelance artists, small business owners, and the casually and unemployed. Kids evenย come in with tutors in the afternoonsโ€”itโ€™s a better place to learn algebra than the library a few blocks away, which doesnโ€™t have much study space.

the carrot arts community coffeehouse 118 avenue alberta edmonton coffee cafe canada sprudge

As per its name, The Carrot also hosts a full calendar of community events, ranging from African dance workshops and aย Friday-morning parenting group to a weekly open mic, a monthly knitting night, andย a recurringย meet-the-cops event, where local beat police and members of the community have a chance to come together in a comfortable environment.

Rhys Howard, a local producer, remembers the first time he attended an open-mic event at The Carrot. โ€œThere were a lot of the standard acoustic folk-song covers that you would expect at an open mic, but there was a little more eccentricity in the air as well. I think [it] maybe came from how different people wereโ€”everyone from a Filipino-Canadian stand-up comedian in his early twenties to somebody in his sixties singing old folk songs,โ€ he says.

the carrot arts community coffeehouse 118 avenue alberta edmonton coffee cafe canada sprudge

Such diversity reflectsย the variety of people who call Alberta Avenue home. Though the neighborhood was for years a hub for prostitution and violent crime, the concerted efforts of organizations like Arts on the Ave, The Kaleido Family Arts Festival, and Deep Freeze Festival, as well as dozensย of individual businesses up and down the avenue who post signs declaring โ€œWe Believe in 118,โ€ have helped makeย Alberta Avenue more notable for its ethnic grocery stores and the community events to which The Carrot is so central.

For as long as they’ve beenย around, coffeehouses have been centers for establishing community and sharing ideas. Itโ€™s hard to overstate the importanceย of a place like The Carrot, where anyone can come in and eat, work, socialize, and drink good coffee.

The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse is located at 9351 118th Avenue NW, Edmonton, Alberta. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Lizzie Derksen is a writer, zine publisher, and coffee professional living in Edmonton, Alberta. Read more Lizzie Derksen on Sprudge.

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