(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Posole and a Paper [1]
['Kim Kobersmith', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2024-11-07
The most reliable place to get a coffee in Marfa, Texas, is The Sentinel. Housed in a renovated historic adobe building, with exposed brick walls and comfortable, desert-inspired furniture, the kitchen serves up morning lattes, baked goods, and breakfast specialties seven days a week. Lunch, starting at 11:00 a.m. consists of West Texas classics and comfort food: enchiladas, tortas, tacos, chile rellenos. One of the most popular dishes is posole, a cilantro broth teeming with vegetables, chicken, and hominy, a simple soup that warms the belly and soul.
Other local specials fill the cocktail menu. The ironically named “Ranch Water,” a regional creation, is tequila and lime juice topped with bubbly water. A Susto Seco combines mezcal, hibiscus tea, agave syrup, and ginger beer.
“Consistency is key, so we are open almost every day,” said co-owner Max Kabat in a phone interview with the Daily Yonder. “We really care about ingredients and offer a place to sit and just be.”
Having down time without an agenda is a big part of the vibe in Marfa, which has a population of less than 2,000 people. Situated in a high plateau between two mountain ranges and 180 miles from the nearest city, El Paso, it is remote. This Big Bend region, named for the beautiful and desolate national park that lies south on the Mexican border, is an austere desert landscape the size of Maryland, with only 18,000 residents. Its “nothingness” creates its allure, and ever since artist Donald Judd began making landscape-scale modern art there in the 1970’s it has become a destination for travelers seeking a quiet respite.
Tourists outnumber locals on a busy weekend. But the Sentinel, though welcoming to visitors, expressly exists to serve the local community. As an important gathering place, it is a coffee shop, restaurant, bar, event space, and retail shop. It hosts everything from the high school prom and high-end weddings, to dance parties and breakfast for art groups.
These aren’t the only things the space offers the local community, though. It funds local journalism, specifically The Big Bend Sentinel, the region’s oldest weekly news source which has been in circulation since 1926. Covering Presidio, Brewster, and Jeff Davis Counties in Far West Texas, the newspaper has always been locally owned and operated.
All purchases at the Sentinel support local journalism, specifically the 100-year-old Big Bend Sentinel. (Photo courtesy of Max Kabat)
Barbacoa tacos. (Photo courtesy of Max Kabat)
The coffee and cocktail bar. (Photo courtesy of Max Kabat)
An Innovative Way to Fund Local News
The current owners are Kabat and his wife, Maisie Crow, who moved to Marfa from New York City in 2016. Both were self-employed digital nomads, Crow as a documentary filmmaker and photojournalist, Kabat as a business consultant. They were seeking a place with a strong sense of community, something that had proven elusive in the big city. Originally, they looked at moving to upstate New York, but Crow’s childhood as a cattle rancher’s daughter in Corpus Christie, Texas, kept drawing her back to the Lone Star State.
The couple had no intention of owning a newspaper. When the previous stewards of The Big Bend Sentinel asked if Kabat and Crow would consider buying the paper, it was a hard, “No.” But as they considered both the necessity of local journalism for democracy and the challenge of creating a viable business model, an idea began to form. They took the paper on in 2019, and their unique backgrounds have inspired the adoption of a very different operations model than other news publications.
“The business model for newspapers really hasn’t changed,” said Kabat. “Revenue is generated from subscriptions and advertisements, no matter what people call it. We asked ourselves, ‘What is the purpose of a newspaper?’ Our macro idea is bringing people together and recording the history and stories of a place and a people.”
When Kabat and Crow purchased The Big Bend Sentinel, its revenue came solely from subscriptions and ads. They believed it would be a losing battle to try to entice people to pay for something that the internet had been telling them for decades should be free, so they kept the cost of the paper to $1. Then they looked to their broader mission of nurturing the community, and thought hard about what people are willing to pay for. Their answer was the multi-faceted third space of the Sentinel coffee shop and restaurant. In service of the newspaper, people purchase food, drinks, high-end retail products, and attend events, all while bringing neighbors together.
The couple has expanded the paper’s revenue streams in other ways, too. The Big Bend Sentinel is a for-profit entity, but Kabat and Crow have developed a fiscal sponsorship with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which works with news organizations across the country to develop sustainable business models. Through this partnership, they can tap into grant funds for specific projects, normally reserved for nonprofit entities. In March, an event in the Sentinel space featuring local bands launched a rural mental health reporting series in the paper, funded through this partnership.
The retail section sells artisan creations like this poster. (Photo courtesy of Max Kabat)
Five years in, the model has proven itself effective. The paper previously had three full-time staff members and some part time distribution help. Now the multi-faceted Sentinel operation is one of the largest employers in Marfa, with twenty full and part time employees. Along with Kabat as publisher and Crow as editor-in-chief, this includes a managing editor and two staff reporters, designers, office staff, baristas, and cooks. The company’s revenue is now more than five times that of the newspaper alone.
Kabat and Crow were relatively new to Marfa when they purchased the paper, and they were looked on by some residents as outsiders. Today they have built credibility by serving the community and by publishing a better paper than before. Subscriptions, paper sales, and advertising have all gone up, and Kabat said people in the community thank them for what they are doing. While there are two other weeklies in the broader region, the Sentinel is recognized as the premier news source for in-depth reporting; its journalists are invited to speak on public radio and are periodically cited in state-wide publications.
“It is our job in local news to be inquisitive,” said Kabat. “We took on the paper because we had experience unpacking juicy problems, and we have written a playbook for creating a business that builds community.”
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://dailyyonder.com/posole-and-a-paper/2024/11/07/
Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/
