Your Common Ground

Your Common Ground • NIAGARA’S COMMON GROUND •
Specialty treats & coffee with a side of friendship.
Our family has been in Niagara for generations. Now?

For decades we've lived in our small rural township and watched as it grew, and grew, and grew. Pelham and its neighbours are blossoming into cities with hundreds of thousands of people. Before our eyes, our small community became filled with strangers. And we became strangers too! Do you know your neighbour? How active are you in your community? We found we lost what was so natural to us,
overwhe

lmed by taking care of our own we forgot that we are stronger together. We wanted to bring back the sense of connection and community that we felt was being forgotten. Check out both of our shops located in the Niagara Region:

Font Coffee Bar
120 Highway 20 West, Fonthill,
Ontario

Junction Coffee Bar
1398 York Road, St Davids,
Ontario

07/24/2026

If you’re looking to get creative, find connection and support local artists - you need to visit LADY LOU COLLECTIVE | GIFT SHOP ✨ ✨

Sometimes being creative is just giving yourself permission to do the thing! Catherine and her team at Lady Lou created such a fun atmosphere for people to explore crafting in a really chill and low stakes way. We all have great ideas, but the budget to build an artists paradise at home is not always attainable, Catherine brought the supplies to us and let us go wild.

The other cool thing about this? You didn’t have to bring a friend, so many people came solo and it was a great way to connect and make friends with people in the community.

Special mention needs to go to the snacks, which by the way are both Canadian:
Klondike Kettle Corn - seriously the best popcorn and they do not skimp on the flavour!
Cove Soda - totally thought these were bad for us until we read the label and saw they were 0 sugar?!

Lady Lou Collective is hosting more crafting nights through the summer- make sure you follow them!

07/21/2026

What if the antidote to hard feelings isn’t a fix, but to finally let it exist and sit with it?

Bee Jaster is a Niagara based poet writing words that validate pain with love’s gentle power. Her newest edition contains poems that reach beyond the page and tug on your soul, as if to say “I see you, you’re going to be okay”.

You can find copies for yourself in these places:
🍯 STYLE CANADA
🍯 junctioncoffeebar
🍯 bee

You’re not lazy. You’re just stuck in the same five places.Same drive to work. Same four walls on the weekend. Same rout...
07/20/2026

You’re not lazy. You’re just stuck in the same five places.
Same drive to work. Same four walls on the weekend. Same routine on loop until the days start to blur. The fix isn’t a big trip, it’s in the interruption of routine.

3 Niagara towns, each one good for a different kind of stuck:
📍 Ridgeway — for connection and wandering. Start at Social Graces Market & Cellar to curate a moment with people you love, then get lost in Beach Town Antiques and lakesidebooksandart next door.

📍 Grimsby — for a shared afternoon. Wander past the Painted Ladies, playfully painted homes that make you smile before you even park the car, then spend the day at Grimsby Public Art Gallery (Grimsby Public Art Gallery ) and the shops around it.

📍 Port Dalhousie — for disappearing into something. The pier, the marina, the old carousel in the park, and Thistle Bookshop and Cafe for when you finally sit still long enough to think.

For anyone who’s felt stuck in the same 5 places. These towns are close enough to revive your creative rut.

Save this for your next free Saturday.
Pull up a chair.
Stay long enough to remember what you’re hungry for.
Then go find it.

YOUR COMMON GROUND
✉️ full essays on Substack
Link in bio.

07/13/2026

🤍

If we had to list some of our favourite places though…
Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake
Port Dalhousie, St Catharines
Town of Grimsby
Prince Edward County

07/09/2026

93% of people quit because they can’t sit with failure. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what art demands of us.

Lisa Russell is a production stage manager in the theatre world. She’s one of many people tasked with holding a live show together. The key to her job? Thriving under pressure.

Pottery had different plans for her. A lesson in failure, and overcoming it.

A collapsed bowl doesn’t care how many years of experience you have, the kiln isn’t your friend, clay doesn’t respond to pleading. Pottery requires patience, and the willingness to try again after the fifth failed attempt…and the fifteenth.

Failure is the part of making something nobody talks about. The finished piece is the star, but it couldn’t have happened without the hundred ugly ones that came before it.

If you know an artist who is in their hundred ugly phase right now, send them this. Failure isn’t your sign to stop, it’s the new feeling you have to befriend in the journey. ✨

Five years in a coffee shop taught us what it looks like when people stop scrolling and actually show up for each other....
06/29/2026

Five years in a coffee shop taught us what it looks like when people stop scrolling and actually show up for each other. We’ve been trying to figure out how to recreate that ever since.

Yes, we’re aware of the irony — using Instagram to tell you to spend less time on Instagram. But that’s exactly the point. This isn’t content to consume and scroll past. It’s a nudge. A door. Something to act on, not just save.

We’re here to introduce you to the makers creating quietly in your own backyard, the books worth clearing your schedule for, the places that remind you what it feels like to actually be somewhere. And then to send you out to find them yourself.

Our first essay is live on Substack — the full story of why this space exists and what we’re here to do. Link in bio. 🪑

Some people are fuelled by ambition. Some by money. Some by status…then there’s us.Fuelled by a perfect playlist that hi...
05/15/2026

Some people are fuelled by ambition. Some by money. Some by status…then there’s us.

Fuelled by a perfect playlist that hits at exactly the right moment. By the book that made you cancel your plans. By golden hour through a car window. By a meal that made you do a little dance. By faith that something bigger is holding all of this together. By road trips that have no real destination.
But it’s the stuff that actually keeps people going.
What’s in your cup?

05/14/2026

You’re not behind. You just haven’t started yet.
Niagara based artist picked up a brush for the first time in 2020.
No training. No plan. Just a feeling she couldn’t ignore any longer.
This is what six years of starting anyway looks like.
If you’ve been waiting until you’re ready,
until you’re good enough,
until the timing is right.
The timing was never going to be right.
That’s not how it works.
Start with what you have.
Start before you’re ready.
Start badly if you have to.
Just start.

~

It was a pleasure to see Peggy’s work at the market where so many talented creatives worked together to welcome spring!

What have you been putting off? Drop it below. 👇

05/10/2026

The festival is on for 2 more days!

Trust us, it’s the kind of day worth rearranging your plans for. Even for locals!
Talented florists and artists all in one place. With a smattering of events,classes and food that will make you think- “I can’t believe this is in our own backyard!”

This is the stuff we’ll be finding for you. More art, more makers, and places you want to know.✨

Be sure to check out the talent from these great folks while you explore:


floral



ca





y.artist


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Font Coffee Bar 120 Highway 20 West
Fonthill, ON
L0S1E0

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