In July 2012, Rosemary Murphy and Terry Piercey took their diverse background, Terry’s in Fine Art (he is also a serious home brewer) and Rosemary’s in Philosophy and Art History (she also has a passion for good food and local agriculture - she owned a small café in her early 20s) and opened what is probably the most uniquely funded restaurant ever in the area, the Antigonish Townhouse Brewpub & Eatery.

If you ask either of them who owns the restaurant, the response is liable to be, “We're kind of ‘in business’ with the entire community.” Confused?

Rosemary and Terry employed a funding model called Community Supported Restaurant (CSR). Used in the United States (it grew out of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement), people buy an annual “subscription” from the business in advance. In the case of the Townhouse Brewpub, 53 people/members subscribed to what is called The SUDS Club, at a cost of $1,000 each.

The subscribers are entitled to $25 worth of food for 12 monthly visits per year or $50 every two months, for a total of four years, totalling $1,200. Each gets a $200 dollar food bonus. Many of these members were friends or family of the owners, but some were strangers. It's important to note that these subscriptions are not guaranteed, part of the deal is that subscription holders share the risk of failure with the business. 

Rosemary spoke with Linda Ramsdell, the co-owner of a little bar and restaurant in Vermont called Claire's, that used the CSR model. She supplied Rosemary and Terry with a detailed account of their system and the CSR experience in general, which aided the couple.

In need of additional funding. Rosemary says, “We also approached individual community members (again some of whom we know, and some we have been enjoying getting to know) who collectively agreed to lend us $100,000. In total, about 30% of our total start-up funds have been sourced directly from the community we hope to serve. With those funds in place we were able to secure an equipment loan from CBDC NOBL and a mortgage for the building from the Credit Union.”

Antigonish Townhouse Brewpub & Eatery offers eight Maritime craft beers on tap, and will be adding their own in-house brew this coming January. They serve rustic comfort foods, all made from scratch and featuring local produce, meat and fish, and local organic cheese and breads. The atmosphere is cozy and relaxed. It’s a place for friends to meet or to enjoy a quiet pint. Sunday nights they host a great session of acoustic Irish traditional music.

Rose says, “NOBL encouraged our use of innovative community-based funding from day one and helped us to find a way to make it happen. Brian (NOBL Business Analyst) has been a great help to us at various stages of launching this venture - from helping us identify our own motivations and strengths, to brainstorming possible solutions each time we ran into a jam along the way. His support, and NOBL's equipment loan and the investments of community members, helped us to secure the final, and largest, piece of our financing puzzle - the all-important mortgage, and get this project off the ground!”