Have you heard this one?
A teacher asks, “Why can’t fresh water fish live in salt water?”
The student responds, “The salt would give them high blood pressure.”
It’s the sort of retro, family-friendly humour Canadians across the country read every week in Coffee News, the double-sided, tan community paper found in cafés and restaurants across the country. Published weekly, it’s a cheerful read, chock full of positive news, trivia, horoscopes and quotable quotes, with 32 ads running around the edges.
Readers might ask their dining companion to tell them what their horoscope predicts. Or the table might take the trivia quiz together. It’s analog entertainment in a digital world, a newspaper that has remained largely unchanged since its debut in Winnipeg more than 30 years ago. Though the fortunes of many magazines and newspapers are on the wane, Coffee News continues to make money for franchisees across Canada and around the world.
Self-styled as “The World’s Largest Restaurant and Coffee Shop publication!” Coffee News is the brainchild of Jean Daum, a community newspaper publisher who moved to Canada from Scotland as a young girl. She spent six months testing her ideas before settling on a prototype for a new community publication. In October 1988, Coffee News launched its first issue in Winnipeg. It was packed with the uplifting stories and local ads that remain a winning combination to this day.
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