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Cafe Guido purchases ‘dying’ Old Schoolhouse store to save it from extinction

After purchasing it they decided to give it a new name, coming up with ‘The Copper & Kelp Market’
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Renovations are underway at the Old Schoolhouse as Cafe Guido gets ready to turn it into the Copper & Kelp Market. (Tyson Whitney - North Island Gazette)

It’s official, Cafe Guido has bought the Old Schoolhouse store on Beaver Harbour Road.

Co-owner Donna Gault said she and her business partner Davida Hudson felt compelled to buy the Old Schoolhouse because they were “watching the building die in front of us, it was getting broken into and getting smashed, and we just knew that if we didn’t buy it that it would die.”

After purchasing it they decided to give it a new name, coming up with the ‘Copper & Kelp Market.’

The market will feature a little bit of everything, says Gault. It will offer a grocery store, a kitchen to make various foods and baked goods, a deli, and also regular convenience store items. The gas station is also being rebuilt and they are hoping to be able to offer regular and diesel gas for sale once it’s done.

Cafe Guido aims to have the Copper & Kelp Market open by the late summer and/or early fall.

The Old Schoolhouse was previously a primary school in Port Hardy in the 1950’s, before becoming a popular convenience store later on for Fort Rupert residents and nature enthusiasts who were on their way to spend time at Storey’s Beach.

Gault added she and Hudson are “very happy that Anna Burgess has agreed to manage the building and she’s quite excited about it — Davida is my partner on this, and she and Anna are working together to make something that everyone can be really proud of.”


@NIGazette
editor@northislandgazette.com

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Tyson Whitney

About the Author: Tyson Whitney

I have been working in the community newspaper business for nearly a decade, all of those years with Black Press Media.
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