After 20+ years, the family that runs Yellowknife's Coffee Break News is looking for a new owner

CBC

2 days ago

After more than 20 years, the family that runs a beloved Yellowknife newsletter is looking to pass the business on to a new owner.
Lynn Elkin bought the Coffee Break News from its original owner back in 2002, thinking her son Brad Hall, who was still in high school at the time, might enjoy running the newsletter as a part-time job.
She ended up being right.
Hall has been the voice behind the newsletter ever since, giving Yellowknifers information on what's going on in the city each week, along with movie times, short articles, quizzes and two full pages of jokes.
Hall said he likes the freedom of getting to choose each week what to research and write about.
"I like learning new information," Hall said. "But I also like to do such things on my own terms. That may be one of my favourite things about it."
In 2022, the family moved to Alberta to be closer to Hall's brother and his kids. While their printer, Kopycat North, and others in the community have offered help, it's been hard to run the Yellowknife newsletter from afar.
They are now looking for someone to take over the business — or at the very least, the delivery side of it.
How the newsletter gets made
Hall does all the research and writing of the newsletter himself each week, fielding emails, looking online for information on events happening in Yellowknife, and gathering facts for quizzes and articles. He then gets all of the content formatted in the newsletter, along with advertisements.
Then Elkin or her husband gives it a proof-read, and they send it to the printer.
Hall also oversees the delivery process to get new copies to the 50-odd Yellowknife businesses that carry the newsletter each week — though a student at the Yellowknife Aurora College campus has taken over making the stops since Hall moved away.
Hall estimates that, all in all, he does about 12 to 15 hours of work on the newsletter each week.
Elkin says she is proud of how long they have kept the newsletter going strong, through changes like the advent of social media and the COVID-19 pandemic.
"When social media really took off a while ago, we really weren't sure that Coffee Break News was going to still be around, but what we found is that social media has its place, and it's not for everyone, and sometimes it's really hard to find all of the information," she said.
"So we found that people had come back to reading us and telling us we were a place that they go for certain things — particularly the public service announcements. And other people who love the jokes."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, they pivoted to an electronic flip-book version within two weeks of lockdowns beginning, which they continue to offer alongside the classic print version.
"We're pretty proud of that," Elkin said.
"It would have been easy to say, 'Oh, forget it!' but we think it provides real value and it's fun."
Advice for the future owner
Since they moved to Alberta, it's been a more challenging business to maintain.
Right now, Hall is volunteering his time, because they decided they wanted all of the profit for the newsletter to stay in Yellowknife. After printing and delivery costs, Elkin said, that's just enough money to offer local businesses and non-profits some discounts on advertising.
Hall, who has now been running Coffee Break News for about half his life, said it would be a big change to pass it on to someone else — but he would be supportive of anyone who wanted to try it.
"My advice for them would be to make it their thing, kind of like I made it mine," he said. "Giving it a personal touch."
Elkin also said she would encourage anyone who takes on the project to add their own "flair".
"But remember who it's for. It's for the community," she said. "Make it so it fits where Yellowknife is and who Yellowknife is becoming as a community."
Chris Woods, the manager of Capitol Theatre, said it's been great working with Hall and Elkin over the years, adding that people tell him all the time that they find showtimes for the theatre in Coffee Break News each week.
"They've done an amazing job taking our show times, formatting them, adding synopsis, posters. It's basically like having an ad agency working for you."
He says he is also just a fan.
"I read it every week. I like the little stories and I like the jokes," he said.
He feels it would be a "great loss" if Coffee Breaks News ended.
"I've worked in a number of cities that had a Coffee Break News-type publication, and a lot of them failed after a while just because the person who was running it felt overwhelmed and they couldn't continue it," he said.
"The fact that this one has been going on for 20 years is just simply amazing."