Our Story

‘How come, when there are so many chic cafés around here, the queue for the food bank is growing?’ ‘How come, in a community that is so motivated and engaged, there is so much social isolation and loneliness?’

We started out as a small group of enthusiastic volunteers wanting to address these questions. And so we spent time talking with projects close to our heart where food plays a central role and invited them to work with us in piloting a cafe with a difference: a cafe which used the unwanted food from their projects to make heart warming soups for anyone and everyone; a cafe that didn’t ask a price for its dishes but invited guests to pay what they wanted; a cafe where those who served would sit down and chat with those who ate. Our local bakery got wind of this and offered us bread; volunteers from our local community offered their time, local shops offered us discarded furniture. We secured a grant from ‘Near Neighbours’ to purchase all we needed and in the spring of last year we opened our doors to our first customer.

Since then, under ‘lockdown’ we have been beavering away to develop our project. A generous grant from ‘Unltd’ is helping us get to the next stage and we are developing a partnership with the National Food Service who work to eliminate food poverty and provide meals to anyone in need. We are also working closely with Growing Communities who have a distribution point at St Mary’s Centre and who donate veg to our project.

We hope to strengthen the café profile by developing other strands - ‘Food 4 Thought’ and ‘Community Feasts’.

If you are interested in joining us on this journey do get in touch; we’d love to hear from you!

Xmas festivities at the café: Children from St Mary’s School and a Xmas wreath making workshop