Grab a seat and settle in for a cup of tea and a hot bowl of soup, and be sure to leave room for a slice of cake — or three. Pay something or nothing. Meet your neighbours. Stay for as long as you’d like.
We are open every Friday from 11am - 2pm. We would love to see you there!
Our Mission
Our society faces a host of existential threats: hunger, fuel poverty, climate catastrophe, and epidemics of loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Each of these problems is worsened by the simultaneous breakdown in community bonds — the sense that we all share a set of ideals and hopes and dreams.
Enter the Second Chance Cafe.
The Second Chance Cafe is a place where all community members can sit down and share a meal together. Get to know each other. Feel welcomed. Our pay-what-you-can model means no one is excluded. We’re not a soup kitchen. We’re not a for-profit cafe. Every day we strive to be a community cafe in more than name only.
We can only do so much alone. Our society faces huge, daunting challenges and we’re just a small community cafe. To magnify our impact, we’ve partnered with a variety of local businesses and likeminded charities all with the shared aims of reducing food poverty, food waste, and social isolation.
Like all the best things in life, ‘building community’ is hard to measure. It can’t be weighed on a scale or added up in spreadsheet, but that’s not to say we don’t keep track of our work and try to get better each day.
We count every meal served, every payment, every in-kind donation, every pound spent, and every volunteer hour worked. Then we publish all the data right here each month so we can have an open discussion about how best to direct our efforts.
Ultimately, it’s the feedback from guests and volunteers that tell us whether we’re on the right track creating a space that makes people feel like their part of a supportive community.
Vegan and vegetarian meals made from upcycled, donated ingredients. Usually it’s some combination of soup, bread, coffee, tea, smoothies, and home-baked cakes, but our menu changes daily depending on what gets donated.
Open for lunch from 12 to 2 every Thursday and 11 to 2 every Friday since June 2021.
Run by a big welcoming team of committed volunteers from all over London, aged 5 to 89. Some cook, some serve, some clean — most do a little of everything.
Before we’re anything, we’re a community — of guests, of volunteers, of charity partners, of business partners… everyone, really. So while our twice-weekly cafe will always be our flagship project, we’re always looking for other ways to fight poverty, food waste, and social isolation.
Our primary vehicle. Open to any and all every Thursday and Friday for lunch from 11 to 2 serving soups, bread, tea, coffee, and home-baked desserts, changing daily depending upon what gets donated. Volunteer run. Pay-as-you-feel, something or nothing.
Through the winter months, we’re extending our hours on Thursdays from 2 - 5pm for anyone who wants to show up and enjoy a hot drink and some good company for a few hours in the comfort of the St Mary’s Centre.
Usually everything we receive from pay-as-you-feel donations gets reinvested right back into our project. But we feel like we should pay some of that generosity forward to the many amazing, likeminded charities fighting worthy causes. About once a month, we choose a cause and hold a ‘theme week’ and send all our pay-as-you-feel earnings directly to a partner charity doing good work in that space. Past fundraisers include the Disaster Emergency Committee for Ukraine War relief, and the London Churches Refugee Fund for refugees in London. Check out our Calendar for what’s up next.
Brenda / Instagram
It takes a village to run a community cafe. We currently have an active team of over 50 volunteers, including cooks, waiters, runners, welcomers, bakers, and cleaners. Volunteers join us for all sorts of reasons: to gain restaurant experience, to gain social confidence in a safe setting, to make friends, or just for the warm fuzzy feeling of giving back to the community.
There are so many ways to participate in our community. Of course the easiest way is to simply turn up on a Thursday or Friday as a guest. For those who’d like to further support the project, you can volunteer (in-person or remote options available), or make a donation.
As a volunteer-run project, we’re always looking for new team members. We’re committed to inclusivity and we’ll make any reasonable adjustments to ensure the cafe is a welcoming, rewarding environment for all.
No experience necessary — all you need is a passion for helping others.
We need your support. We operate on a pay-what-you-feel basis so that our cafe is open to all regardless of ability to pay. Some guests pay nothing for their meal. Others pay whatever they can manage. All are treated exactly the same. These payments cover about half of our running costs. The rest comes from direct donations and grants. Please consider supporting.
