WHY WE SHOULD CHERISH OUR LOCAL CAFÉS
IN SOAP operas cafés last forever. Roy’s Rolls may have gone through many incarnations on the cobbles of Coronation Street but it will never come a cropper. In East-Enders Kathy Beale even came back from the dead to re-take the reins of Walford’s favourite greasy spoon.
But in the real world longevity is not a given for the independent community café .
These kind of small business are subject to huge commercial pressures. While such latte leviathans as Starbucks, Costa and Coffee #1 can swoop in on prime locations with ease, overheads and lease costs for quirky individual cafés can be prohibitive.
I’m mourning the loss of my own local caff this week – Waffle in Canton. Run by Victoria Morgan, it has been my coffee-stop of choice for nine years. But I sat down to my final all-day breakfast on Sunday just hours before it closed its doors for the last time. Victoria is reluctantly bringing Waffle to an end.
The landlord who owns the building and adjacent units aims to turn the block into flats.
This is something of a recurring theme in this part of Canton. Everything gets flattened for flats eventually. The pub across the road has already been razed to make way for a development of apartments. The imposing Victorian edifice of Clive Hall School – which Roald Dahl once attended – met the same fate several years ago.
While the need for extra housing is obvious – though this is meeting yuppie demand rather than social – it always seems to be at the expense of services and independent businesses.
Even on the smallest suburban streets only big money survives. Our corner shop may look suitably Open All Hours, for example, but the One Stop chain is, of course, owned by Tesco.
So given the heavy financial pressures on independents, it is perhaps remarkable that Waffle lasted so long. You only had to witness the outpouring of affection – expressed in flowers, cards and glowing social media testimonials – for Victoria and waitress Michelle over its final weekend to know what the café meant to its customers.
And the customers meant a lot to the staff. Victoria admitted businesses of this type are never going to be hugely lucrative but the satisfaction came from creating a focus for a diverse community of regulars.
The customers didn’t just appreciate the quality of food and beverages on offer. Though the signature waffles were to die for, the vegan options critically acclaimed and I still don’t know how I’m going to cope without their hot chocolate almost every other day, the USP was the ambiance and welcome.
In a society where the definitions of family have changed radically and living spaces have shrunk, a community café can provide another kind of home.
My feelings on the importance of a café to its community were echoed in a blog written by Australian writer and photographer Brydie Piaf when she was dismayed to find her local coffee shop owners were leaving: “There is something really inviting about going somewhere, where you are greeted warmly by name. Your coffee is being made without having said a word, and the conversation is easy. It’s hard to find that. It’s almost like an extension of your home. For many of my friends who live in the area and all living in two-bedroom apartments with kids, these cafés are utilised frequently. Whether it be a place to take small children to on a rainy day for a babyccino, a meeting spot with a friend or a place for some quiet contemplation without kids. Cafés in inner city living are used, utilised and loved. Having a warm friendly face to greet you as you come in makes the experience. That café space for me has been on many an occasion, a life saver.”
Working from home for days on end with only a computer screen for company, Waffle has provided a similar social lifeline, not to mention my main source of nourishment. Here, over my regular lunch of an All Day Small Breakfast (with off-menu egg poached, not fried, especially for me) I would bump into other lone home-workers breaking up their day with a flat white and a chat.
Or I’d see the new mums desperate for some adult conversation who could nurse a cappuccino for two hours while their babes snoozed and their tots availed themselves of Victoria’s extensive storybook collection.
Or Dot, the fabulously feisty pensioner with a snow-white bob, booming voice and whose Australian granddaughter Caroline Buchanan was BMX cycling world champion. I followed Caroline vicariously through two Olympics thanks to Dot broadcasting her tales of sporting pride across the café tables.
Then there were the Taekwondo kids who’d arrive straight from class still in their martial arts togs or the Treganna youngsters in their yellow sweatshirts coming for a treat on the school-run home.
On one particularly memorable occasion I bumped into John Hefin there, the great television drama director who gave us The Life and Times of Lloyd George and Grand Slam. It was a lovely surprise. John lived in Borth but was visiting his daughter who lived nearby.
We had a great chat. After he’d gone I discovered that with typical generosity he’d already paid for my meal. It turned out to be the last time I saw him. He died later that year. Our paths crossing in Waffle is a memory I now cherish.
And there are other people I met in my local café I won’t forget – the customers who felt safe in a place where Victoria and Michelle were protective and patient with them. The adults with special needs, who came with their carers; the old gentleman with dementia; the young lad with autism – all were part of our Waffle family.
It’s the people who have made this place a difficult one for Victoria to say goodbye to.
“I’ve seen customers go through so many things,” she explained.
“I remember your mum coming in here when she was having her cancer treatment and could only manage a milkshake yet she was so upbeat and only wanted to ask me how I was. I remember your dad coming here with you after she died and seeing how hard it was for him.
“I’ve seen kids grow up, people get married, divorced, bereaved, have babies. You share in so much of people’s lives.”
So just like the eateries of soap operas, a café like Waffle was at the heart of so many intersecting human stories. And it’s this community Victoria will really miss.
“I knew it was going to be hard to say goodbye to my customers, but it has been much, much harder than I thought,” she said.
We should celebrate and support those that manage to survive against the economic odds and in the face of desperately unfair competition from the giant chains. Because, as I’ve experienced over the past nine years, the best independent cafés provide a service to the community that money just can’t buy.