Come for the coffee, stay for the music
Friday, December 4th, 2009 | 11:30 am

Blenz coffee shop in West Kelowna.

By Pieter Uni
www.kelowna.com

Exploring West Kelowna’s nightlife doesn’t take long, but in an effort to change that, Chris Dyck is going local.

Dyck, the assistant manager at Blenz coffee shop in West Kelowna has an idea, and it’s all based around music and art created and performed by West Kelowna’s artistic minds.

“I live in Kelowna but I work out of West Kelowna and what I have noticed is the night life here is really one dimensional,” said Dyck. “There is not a lot of entertainment unless you want to go to the pub, so I want to give people something that will make them stay on this side of the bridge.”

That something is music and art.

Beginning tonight, Blenz will host local musicians on a weekly basis where performers will have an opportunity to showcase their skills. For Dyck, the idea combines a love for the community with a strong business sense.

“After a certain part of the day, once the box stores around us close, we are forgotten,” he explained. “So we thought about what we need and what does the area need and I think we all need a little more life here.”

So to inject more entertainment into West Kelowna, Blenz will push around chairs and tables in order to accommodate musician Jeff Pike, who will kick off the first of what Dyck hopes to be many nights filled with music. Pike, who is a part of the band Windborn, will play acoustic guitar for approximately an hour.

“He’s played here before, when my family took over the store,” said Dyck, whose parents own and operate the West Kelowna Blenz location. “Basically his music is laid back and that is the atmosphere we are trying to create.”

But Dyck’s vision doesn’t end with music.

“Music and art go hand-in-hand,” he said. “We have had a lot of local artists approach us to put their work in our shop. But I want to do better than that. Instead of rotating art every week, I thought we could showcase their work too.”

Dyck plans on expanding the showcases to two nights a week, but said that Blenz would first see how December works out, before increasing the number of shows in January.

The first showcase, with Pike as its entertainer, begins at 7 p.m. tonight at the Blenz coffee shop, with no charge for admission.

pieter@westkelowna.com

250-863-8049