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Old United Church takes on new life

Kerri’s Café and Bakery takes over iconic building in downtown Westlock
Keri's Cafe IMG_1527
The United Church building, constructed in 1928, is now home to Kerri’s Café and Bakery. The eatery officially opened at its new location Sept. 21. Andreea Resmerita/WN
WESTLOCK - The old United Church in downtown Westlock has been converted into a café and the new owners hope it’ll encourage more foot traffic in the core.

Kerri’s Café and Bakery used to reside in an old creaky building on the corner of 106 St. and 101 Ave., itself a neat space to host a café. Since Sept. 21 they’ve been at the downtown church, all in all a better, larger space for them.

“(The United Church) is a beautiful landmark building in Westlock and it needed a new purpose, I think,” said owner Kerri-Lee Kostiw. “This is another way to have people gather together and bring the community together. It’s not another church, but food brings people together too.”

And while there’s very practical reasons for the move since they needed more room and this allows them to have a proper kitchen to prepare more food, they’ve also managed to preserve something for the whole community.

“Lots of people have come in and said ‘Oh, we were married in this church,’ or ‘I remember it as a kid,’” said Kostiw.

“There are lots of people that have had experiences here and they’re so happy that even though it’s been repurposed, we’ve still been respectful to the space that was here before and that it still makes them feel like part of the old, but it’s also new.”

Kostiw herself is not a stranger to the building: “I used to be a music teacher and I had concerts here, so I kind of felt at home. I know the structure of it.”

And as a space its high ceilings, natural light and enough room to space out because COVID-19 is still around, are added bonuses.

Ultimately it’s just modern and welcoming, she said.

“We’re hoping that it’ll draw more people to the downtown and not just the strip of fast-food restaurants, so people will come down and maybe do some shopping too.”

They’ve had two weeks in the space, fully opened, and there’s been lines out the door most days for lunch. Their clientele have been people of all ages, from young families to students and seniors.

“Actually this morning, there was a couple that just moved from the city recently, and the lady said she was kind of feeling sad about leaving the city because she said, ‘Oh, I won’t have a cool café to go to,’ you know, that kind of cultural space.”

To that customer, Kostiw says, the place was better than what she’d seen in Edmonton: “I’m going to tell my friends to come here,” she told Kostiw.

Over the weekend, they were finishing up a patio deck they added on the north side of the building, wheelchair-accessible, for “barrier-free access to the church.” That’s why folks might have seen the concrete trucks around.

The United Church went on sale around October 2019. Board of trustees chair Brian Trueblood said the congregation numbers weren’t enough anymore to support the building. He told the News then that he was hoping there would be buyers interested in keeping the 1928 structure.

Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com

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