It’s rare, even unheard of, that I offer you business advice. If you have any sense of this blog at all, you know my thoughts do not that way tend. However, I do follow a super fun and interesting trend-spotting site, Springwise, and I want to share a trend that I wish would spread to NYC:
Hoping to unleash everyone’s inner artist, Vancouver-based Raw Canvas is a creative hybrid: bustling café and full-service art studio.
Besides offering the usual café fare—organic coffee and tea, snacks, comfy couches and wifi, as well as wine, beer and tapas at night—Raw Canvas encourages customers to pick up painting. They can drop in at any time, buy a canvas and just get started in the open studio space that’s connected to the café. Raw Canvas provides paints, brushes and all other supplies, and staff members and resident artists are on hand to offer encouragement and tips.
Inspired by popular art jams in Hong Kong, Raw Canvas aims to provide a low-threshold venue where people can come in for a few hours and explore their artistic impulses without committing time or money to a series of classes. With, of course, the added pleasure of a latte or glass of wine. Canvas pricing varies by size, ranging from CDN 40 to CDN 80. If you’re a café owner looking to add a new source of revenue to your business, be inspired and get creative!
Now I don’t think it’s just me: the appeal of going to a cafe, maybe having a glass of wine with a friend, and then doing increasingly goofy portraits of said friend is universal. In fact, I might start throwing art parties as the weather in New York gets warmer and we can paint en plein air.
Anybody up for a painting party?