Bennigans and the Beginning of NewsOverCoffee

I started this site in April of 2006 for a single purpose - to serve as a one-stop online source for the community of Nazareth. The problem I saw was that the daily newspapers couldn't cover the community to the extent needed, and the weekly publications didn't have the resources to do so.

The answer was in the people. I knew that while it may only be a handful of individuals who attended many of the local government and service organization meetings, they did attend. And if they were willing to share information from their meetings it could be used to inform those unable to attend or unaware of the meeting in the first place. Connect to share became my driving force.

So I had an idea and using self-publishing tools and other online services that were available at little to no cost, I had NewsOverCoffee up and running. My next challenge was to make the site known to residents - and to generate content.

I began to spread the word one person at a time and seeded the site with content based on my attending Council meetings and reporting on reports in the local dailies. The first month of tracking visitors showed I had 238 unique visitors in May (by comparison the most recent full month, September, had over 2,100).

I then was speaking to a resident from Lower Nazareth who is a part-owner of the Bennigans on Schoenersville Road. He offered to supply some gift certificates that I could use to promote the site. I offered them up in a drawing tied to the block party in Nazareth. The first campaign was so successful I ran a second one and word began to spread. Unique visitors jumped to 370 and then to 772 in July. Of course there was the government center issue taking place, but having the raffle gave people an extra incentive to visit over the summer and it was very much appreciated.

Saturday night I finally got my Guiness expert and his wife scheduled for dinner at Bennigans to check out the Guinness Grill menu that was promoted during the raffle. We had a great time each of us ordering from the Guinness Grill menu and it was unanimously agreed that the Guinness Glaze that was used was great. I had a Guinness Glaze Bacon Cheeseburger with endless fries and it was the best I've had in recent memory. The Guinness Glaze Grilled Chicken Sandwich was the choice of both our wives and my Guinness expert declared the Guiness Mixed Grill Combo's "Oh Baby" back ribs to be "kick-@ss".

The waiter was even good enough to put the Liberty vs. Beca game on the television near our table so we kept updated and afterward we enjoyed watching the end of the game in the bar area. Many others were doing the same and it gave Bennigans the corner pub atmosphere. Great food and many thanks to Bennigans for helping me out when I most needed it to bring attention to this site.

Also if your group is looking to raise money - as they all are - contact Bennigans and ask for Steve Ferretti. He told me about a few different programs that have been successful for groups including Bennigans Gift Certificates where each sale includes a donation to the organization and Bennigans Nights where a percent of all food (not alcohol by law) purchases will be donated to the organization when patrons indicate they came for the xyz club.

While many readers are new to the site, others have been with me over the past six months and I want to thank all of you for reading, commenting, and passing this link along to your friends, co-workers and family.

The site is about Nazareth and its people. For me, while it is a place where I hope we can talk and discuss the most local of issues, it is also a place where I want people to feel comfortable to post their comment or opinion. I want this to be a positive environment as I don't believe you can solve problems by flaming people or shouting them down. That doesn't mean we ignore tough issues, we just have to discuss them in the right way. Considering the growth in the sight and the many new readers I'm glad to say I've not had significant problems. That to me speaks volumes considering the significant issues being addressed by the community.

One person recently commented that I see life through blue-colored glasses and am overly-sensitive when Nazareth is criticized. That person was right for the reasons I just stated. It is by far much easier to sit back and criticize than it is to try to find viable solutions and affect change. This site is only about Nazareth (roughly translated to the area encompassing the school district), but if it were about another community I'd respond the same way. Most forums tend to fall into the trap of criticizing and mocking and after a while they lose their appeal to all but a handful of people. I don't want to see what has been built up here disappear, instead I want to encourage people to send me their local news and information (send to editor@newsovercoffee.com) and let me share it with everyone else.

Again thanks and I hope for those who are new to the site this six month anniversary note helps you better understand from where I'm coming and will encourage you to contribute!