About

In 2010 the second phase of the venture, Arts Alley, was opened in the lower level of Commerce Plaza containing the Cafe Bar, three exhibition galleries, the Underground Theatre and the Artist Development Center where services are available in music, literature, visual & performing arts.

The Community Arts Café is an ‘arts community concept,’ intended to fill a void that is lacking within most communities; a full service arts facility and media outlet dedicated exclusively to the coverage and support of the local arts. The Community Arts Café publications and web community was first created and developed in 2006 by Salem Music owner, Jim Tedder of Winston Salem, NC, and was initiated as a community service to connect individual artists, arts organizations and patrons of the arts. The heart of the venture is to cultivate an environment for sharing in the creative expression of the arts within the local community. Together with his wife, Cathy, they planted the seed of a concept that they have been nurturing to produce a healthy all-inclusive arts community platform which may be reproduced in any community.

The first issue of The Community Arts Café magazine, a high quality glossy, free publication, premiered in July of 2006 and steadily grew in popularity throughout the Triad area until December of 2007, when the printed edition was discontinued for financial reasons. The introduction of ‘Triad Arts this Week!,’ a weekly arts events email newsletter, in December 2007 dramatically increased readership throughout the triad with new subscribers being added daily, and development of the website became the focus for the following year.

In 2009 the Community Arts Cafe's physical location was established in Commerce Plaza at 411 West 4th Street in downtown Winston-Salem. Along with about 30 artists desiring an outlet for their work, the Gallery of the Arts was established as the primary retail outlet for the Community Arts Cafe and the first phase of the physical location. The Gallery doors were opened on October 17th, 2009 and currently represents the work of over 60 Triad based artists in all mediums of visual arts, plus the literary works from local authors as well as recorded music and video.

In 2008, Scott Plaster brought another important element to the mix with his web development expertise and his business, Webyoni, which also gives the CAC venture the ability to provide affordable website building and hosting services to the arts community as well. Scott was an integral part of the development and construction of the Community Arts Café arts & news website that provides the most useful and efficient tools for promoting the arts communities on a large scale.

Phase three, the Cafe Theatre, is projected for opening on the third floor of Commerce Plaza sometime in late 2011. In addition to the Cafe Theatre, which serves as a showcase dinner theatre for new local works, phase three will make available other services for artist development including a recording studio, a video production studio and a print facility.