The year was 2013. It started as the following:
My staff and I used to be busy making drinks behind the espresso bar at my little coffee shop, handing them out to smiling customers happy to get their hands on that warm cup of coffee.
we had our regulars, just as one would expect of a local café! However at times, I’d notice a ‘different’ type of face looking at me or not looking me, across the bar! I’d pick up on something, a clue of some sort if you will, a clue to their insides, a clue to something …off. And at that very moment, I’d make the drink, hand it out, smile and say ‘it’s on me’. And that’s how it all began. Me falling in love with something beyond continuously wiped down espresso bar counters, real estate square footage full of the aroma of coffee surrounding it, and the nostalgic noise of a milk steaming wand and the knocking of a portafilter.
I fell in love with something bigger. Something that changed those lonely moments for those customers, to something better and simply warmer. They were coming to my coffeeshop thinking they were seeking the warmth of a cup of coffee, but in reality, a lot of times…they were seeking a little bit of warmth for their ‘souls’, before the warmth reached their hands or just about! And that’s the part I was glad to be able to change, even if it was just at those very brief instances.
The story didn’t stop there, and rather continued to grow! Customers started coming back later, to say thank you for the coffee gesture! And they started sharing how that simple gesture made them feel at that moment! How sometimes that simple act of kindness, managed to go a bit or sometimes a lot further, it managed to make their day, better than they had expected it to turn out to be.
Very soon, the story took an expected turn, when customers started asking if they could offer that same gesture to random others! They asked if they could purchase a cup of coffee for a random stranger visiting whenever! Of course I said yes. And ‘that’s’ when the actual magic happened.
Even to this day, I still hang on to letters people had written down in those glorious days, to a lucky receiver! They wrote them while smiling, after purchasing a pay it forward coffee, for another person who would come after them, and not necessarily immediately after them. They ‘knew’ what it was going to feel like, they had experienced it. And it grew like a wildfire from there….
I remember having very generous donors too. We sometimes handed out free coffee for an entire day!!! It sounds crazy! But it did happen! And in a world full of scepticism?! It was a wonderful contrary reality! and an amazing story of community, simple care for each other and ..warmth.
Those were the best days of my life. Not just taking pride at offering a great latte or an amazing cup of cappuccino, but to change people’s lives even if it’s only in very brief and perhaps fleeting moments! To create warmth and watch it grow.
For someone who’s a non-dreamer -I’m the non-dreamer- catching yourself SUDDENLY dreaming, is surprising, yet very exciting at the same time!
Fastforward to this week, 2018:
I’m a realist, I practice living in the moment; so it’s pretty difficult for someone like myself to dream! Yet I did just that! I had a dream of recreating that coffee shop I closed down 3 years ago! Who knows..!
"But the hours grew so empty” 