The following article appears in the March - May '98 issue of FolkNotes.

The Eagle Rises

By Suni Edson

Ken Millett tells me that he has a familiar face. The kind that you assume you have already met. Ken does nothing to dissuade you from this impression, instead making you feel welcome. I have never met Ken, but my conversations with him, musicians, and his friends leads me to believe this is true. It is cheerful exuberance and friendliness that has allowed Ken and his tireless volunteers to take The Night Eagle Cafe in Oxford from near bankruptcy to a still struggling, but on the road to success business.

Formed in 1993, the Night Eagle Coffeehouse and Emporium started as a non-profit coffeehouse interested in bringing music to the Southern Tier. Serving only a small selection of drinks and home-made desserts, the board of directors concentrated their time on bringing in good performers and decorating their walls with local art. Although they were surviving on subsidies and the income from the shows, apparently they weren’t doing well enough. Last spring, the board decided to close the doors.

"I got the call at work," Ken remembers. "They said they were locking the doors today. I couldn’t let them do that." As vice-president of the board, he made them an offer. "I told them I would personally assume the debt if they would all resign. They thought I was crazy, but they did it." He decided to take the Night Eagle in the way that it should have gone in the first place.

Knowing that they couldn’t survive on government subsidies, the Night Eagle was changed to a for-profit business. Instead of expanding the food to make more money, he had started a small gift shop and made the prices of all shows $10. He says that this is a listening room and should be treated as such. "Performers are a bit unnerved when they first come in since there is no cappuccino machine and no plates clinking. People are just looking at them. But they love it after they start playing. They turn it into a true performance instead of just a show. It makes every show here worth the ten dollars."

Apparently the patrons love it too. In the past, two similar acts booked on adjacent nights would not fare well. One would pack them in, the other would play to two people. This spring, Lucy Kaplansky sold-out on Friday. Cliff Eberhardt drew in a near full house the next night. Last year, that would have been unheard of.

Ken attributes the change in attendance not only to the improvement in performances but to the improvement in the way they promote their shows. Their newsletter is now released once every two months in a format that is easily displayed on a refrigerator door. In addition, there web page is new and improved (www.artmakers.com/nighteagle/index.html). Both the web page and the newsletter give schedules and descriptions of upcoming performers, with the web page giving greater detail.

Although not quite out of the financial woods, the Night Eagle is on the road to recovery. The way is slow and tedious, but there are a lot of people who have been very giving of their time to make it work. "Every performance is the best, and we want it to stay that way," Ken says. The trip down to Oxford is well worth your time and money. And for those of you who think it is too far, the web page will soon display a map from Syracuse to Oxford that is purported to get you there is an hour.

This page maintained by Dana Cooke. E-mail me at djcooke@aiusa.com.