Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

North Star asking the community to help guide it through tough times

No one really likes asking for money. Well, except debt collectors.

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Kim Anderson, standing outside her North Star Cafe in Portland, is trying to raise $6,000 to keep her business open. “I feel really grateful for people trusting us to work this out and support this business,” she said of early donations.

John Patriquin /Staff Photographer

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Owner Kim Anderson is proud that her North Star Cafe, in addition to being a restaurant, has become home to everything from poetry nights and open mics to discussion groups, dance parties and an anti-art school

John Patriquin /Staff Photographer

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But most folks would rather chew off an arm or subsist on noodles and Kool-Aid packets before asking their family or friends for financial help.

Of course, when it's important, pride takes a back seat and lets reason and common sense drive the car.

"My thought is always, 'How we can do it?'" said Kim Anderson. "It's not 'Can we do it?' It's how."

Reason and common sense are something Anderson relies on in running the North Star Music Cafe in Portland.

Last week, many were surprised when a message went out from the North Star appealing to the community for a few bucks to keep the doors open.

In e-mails and on Facebook, the word spread that the cafe must raise $6,000 this month to stay open.

It's a step more in line with National Public Radio than most businesses. But the idea behind North Star has been community from the start, and now Anderson is hoping the community responds.

Sleeves rolled up, pen behind her ear, Anderson, 29, sat down during a lunch rush at the cafe to talk last week. "Do we need it? Yes. Would we close without it? It's a possibility," she said.

At the moment, they're around $2,000 closer to their goal, she said.

The truth is, even under the best circumstances and with great planning, times can get tight. And they have for North Star.

Anderson adjusted the menu after the cost of ingredients and other goods went up. And Anna Maria Tocci, who co-founded the business with Anderson in 2007, left to pursue other projects.

Combine that with a minor slowdown and the general punch to the stomach the economy is giving most businesses, and you have a shortfall.

The North Star was on its way to crossing the bridge from startup to sustainability, Anderson says. Of course, it's one of those old rope bridges, and a few wooden planks just dropped out.

Even looking at the facts, deciding to ask for help wasn't easy, Anderson said. It would be all too easy to burn good will with people after asking for money.

Anderson shouldn't have been surprised by the response, but she was. She even had trouble finding the words for a second.

"I don't have the right adjective for it," she said, pausing.

Then she found it.

"I feel really grateful for people trusting us to work this out and support this business," she said.

In the almost three years that North Star has been at the base of Munjoy Hill, it has tried to create an identity that reflects the community. And by many accounts it has succeeded.

It offers coffee, lunch and dinner. But in the evening and on weekends it's a showcase.

North Star has become home to everything from poetry nights and open mics to discussion groups, dance parties and an anti-art school.

"We really aren't just a restaurant. We really aren't just an event space," Anderson said. "We're engaged with the community."

A chemistry major turned-steamship-agent-turned entrepreneur, Anderson said that when she and Tocci envisioned North Star, the people were always a part of it.

They wanted to create "the place you just go and find your friends any time of the day," she said.

She hopes they'll make the nut, all $6,000, and never have to do a fund drive again.

Anderson said she's been making adjustments to the business plan that should make the business sustainable, meaning North Star could be around for a long time.

But as far as planning for the future, Anderson is careful, if only because so much of the North Star is determined by the community.

Although that means dance parties, tango night, acoustic showcases and communal meals, its fate is literally in the hands of the community, at least for now.

Anderson will keep working – she's stopped counting how many hours each week.

When you work at something hard enough over time, you don't always get to take stock. Sure, if you love it enough – and Anderson does – when you're busting your back it doesn't feel like work.

She enjoys it in increments, big or small.

"There are moments when the task list stops running through my head and I can sit there. I just watch people," she said.

"It gets warm and fuzzy."

Staff Writer Justin Ellis can be contacted at 791-6380 or at:

jellis@pressherald.com