Photo and Article by Mary Alice Murphy
The Market Café, a project of the Silver City Food Co-op, held its grand opening on Saturday, Oct. 17.
The Silver City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce helped the café celebrate with a ribbon cutting.
Mike Madigan, assistant manager of the Co-op and who runs the Market Café, said the soft opening since the Fourth of July this year was just to get the project off the ground. "It's going well. We are getting to know our customer base, so we know what they want from us. We have plenty of gluten-free and 95 percent of what we have is organic."
"We source as much local as we can," Madigan continued. "Anyone is welcome to come in and enjoy the food and the visit."
He recognized his staff by first names only as Stephen, Sarah, Lynne, Jerome, Ben and Carolyn. "We have built a team. Everyone knows how to do everything. If someone has to miss, someone else can pick up the job. We want to create a co-op experience here, too, with equity, equality and sustainability to show the town what a different business model looks like. We pay a living wage and our employees get benefits. This shows that another way is possible, and we have health organic and delicious food."
Madigan said this is the next big thing for the Co-op. "We are looking for new creative ways to expand our services. We have workshops and this is a community space and business at the same time."