Rotary Club hears from Jennifer Cannon about upcoming events

Published 9:37 am Wednesday, February 8, 2023

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Members of the Bainbridge Rotary Club gathered at the Kirbo Center on Tuesday for their weekly meeting. The guest speaker of the day was Jennifer Cannon, owner of J. Christine Esthetique and the Elysian Tea Room, and current Chairman Elect of the Chamber of Commerce. Cannon spoke about the numerous projects and upcoming events she is currently working on around town.

“We want everybody to know, and everybody to spread the word, so all these awesome events can be well-attended,” she said. “Bainbridge is really becoming the center of our region, and a lot of that has to do with a lot of hard work on the part of a lot of people.”

After recapping the weekend events with the Bainbridge Jazz and Blues Festival, Cannon spoke about her business, the Elysian Tea Room & Emporium. She discussed some of the products offered, including an artisan line of tea carried. “All of these teas are blended with herbs, fruits and botanicals that are grown by small farms in that area,” Cannon said, referring to Huntsville. These teas are also used in making the Elysian’s well-known boba tea. “So boba tea is something that’s kinda new on the scene in the last few years,” Cannon explained. “People love it, it’s just these little balls of fruit juice. You mix those with the tea blend, and you get this really cool sensory concoction.”

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According to Cannon, the Tea Room draws out-of-towners to visit Bainbridge, and has allowed her to meet multiple people from all over the country who have moved to Bainbridge. “I’ve literally met somebody that moved to Bainbridge off of a map, because of the location. We’re only so many hours from a major metropolitan city in this country. We’re two hours from the beach, we’re not too far from Disney, we’ve got the river, we’ve got Spring Creek, we’ve got Lake Seminole, we’ve got the fishing tournaments.” She continued, “We have all of this, and we’re so centrally located, so I know when you’ve been somewhere for a long time, and you’re surrounded by it, you forget how wonderful it is.” Cannon described her goal as making Bainbridge “the center of our region.”

Cannon moved on to discussing Food Trucks on Broad, which has been rather limited so far. “We’ve been waiting on the laws to change,” she said. “The laws were very stringent as far as bringing food trucks from county to county, and that recently just changed. So you’ll be seeing that a lot more.”

Cannon then moved on to discuss her current partnership with Hit City Radio, an internet radio station. According to Cannon, she has people from all over the country tune in to her show, called “Spilling the Tea”, where she discusses all the upcoming events in Bainbridge. The show airs on Mondays at 11:00.

Other events Cannon discussed included the upcoming Mardi Gras festivities, being put on by the Mardi Gras Society of Southwest Georgia.

Cannon concluded by taking questions from the audience.