Connections Café & Bakery  

The idea for Connections Café came through the meeting the challenges of selling products from our own farms locally and the belief that with planned actions we can recreate the local food economy that existed during the heyday of our grandparent’s farms. 

The eating experience at Connections Café focuses on the local farmers who grew the food. The café’s menus selections will range from home cooked comfort foods (like Grandma’s) of meatloaf, shepherds pie, and lasagna, to sandwiches, soups, and salads. Vegetarian and vegan selections will also be available. Take out will be available and promoted. Each Connections Café visit will meet guest needs for great tasting food they can feel good about feeding their family, in a traditional, educational, and fun café atmosphere, while providing an authentic experience with locally-grown food.

Connections Café & Bakery will be the first establishment in the area to make a commitment to provide healthier selections of home cooked meals and bakery goods using locally produced goods while offering other educational and cultural connections. A commitment to the art of preparing healthier foods and development of cultured palates is one of Connections main purposes. We believe that passing this knowledge and experience on to our communities is of prime importance.

Our management team of community minded farmers is committed to the mission of Connections Café. This teams combined skills include market promotion, culinary arts, sanitation, and safety, cost controls, personnel management, customer service, communications, and accounting systems.  

Services offered:

Menus will contain nutritional sections and bios of local farms and farmers that we purchase our food from. Putting a face on our farmers, the services and the products they supply is a high priority. All participating farmers will provide growing methodologies, available varieties, farm history, and photos for marketing tools. These marketing tools also allow the public an informed choice regarding our food and how it is grown. We believe that informed choices and experiential knowledge is critical to the growth of the organic agricultural market in Maine.  

Our personnel will be the ambassadors that connect customers with the farmers that grew their food. Beginning with purchasing foods from local farmers, to their pictures in the menu, the dining experience is all about the linkage between the farm and the community, education – and having fun. Fair prices paid to farmers will fit the cost of goods (COGS) targets. Attention to menu design and portion control will set prices 7-15% higher than competitors. We are developing many high profit, low cost sales items that will off set lower breakfast and lunch tickets, which are expected to be an average of $6.50 to $10.00, respectively.    

The Café and Bakery will be open seven days per week, 6:00 am to 9:00 pm.  The cafés early open hours will capitalize on the traffic created by the local paper mill’s shift change. Despite the demographics of the Dixfield, Maine market, Connections Café will demonstrate that it can purchase the majority of its foods from local farmers and producers, and have affordable plate costs and cost of goods sold just below 35%. A market with higher average incomes will make this target easier to achieve with slightly higher prices for current menu offerings and through new, higher priced value added menu offerings. The Café will contract and cater private parties and functions, which will take place at the facility and off site. 

In recognition of the fact that the costs to produce our foods will be higher than the average restaurant, in order to contain costs, the café will be mostly self-serve. There will be a cashier serving both the café and local foods market, available for assistance and purchases. 

Connections will pledge to purchase good quality locally grown foods at a price that ensures profitability for all. This resolution alone will increase markets for local farmers while building local economies. “Local” is defined as within a 50-mile radius of Dixfield. If local foods are not available, we will reach further out within Maine as long as transportation costs do not outweigh the ability to maintain a profit. A certain amount of foods will have to be purchased outside of Maine, particularly in the winter season. We will maintain guidelines focusing on whole grains, less refined sweeteners, and whole foods in our purchasing policies.  

Connections Café will purchase a majority of its inventory through Connections Local Foods Market. Connections Local Foods Market will purchase, process, and package to our specifications. Menus selections will be designed on using the whole animal as opposed to specific cuts of meat. Live animals will be purchased from local farms and processed according to our specifications at a local USDA licensed processing facility. Some preferred cuts will be packaged with the originating farm’s label and sold in the Local Foods Market retail space. The Café will utilize bones for healthy soup stocks and fat for lard, soap, etc. The farmer will benefit from selling the whole animal not just specific cuts; however the farmer can expect to receive less per pound than if the cuts were all sold separately. We will consider buying frozen quality cuts that are not selling, so farmers will not have to worry about inventory shrinkage. 

We believe we can help to renew interest in farming with local youth by collaborating with 4 H and other youth organizations. We will accomplish this by offering a new market to sell their project animals and developing programs, which mentor youth from field to table. By networking with local elderly meal programs, Connections will create the opportunity for our youth to share meals with the elderly, which they grow, prepare, and serve. We will help create a dialog while eliciting and preserving the stories regarding the very heritage, which founded this region. Connections Arts component will film and record these stories of the past relating to food and its importance in our culture and local history. 

 We will reach out to help educate members of the community by networking with other social service organizations concerned about health, nutrition, and education. Connections will invite the local community to gather family heritage recipes to share while promoting our cultural diversity. Ethnic and cultural selections for the menu will be developed from community input. Connections will share the community families’ cultural traditions and stories through media and events.  

Connections main goals include ensuring farmers receive a profitable and fair price that is commensurate with the value of the goods sold.  We fully understand that direct markets put more money in the farmer’s pocket. Connections will serve as a marketing tool by buying products from the farmer at mutually agreed upon wholesale prices. Our emphasis will be in helping our partnering farms to create more value added markets while developing personal relationships between the farmers and direct consumers.