Rebecca Mancini
Published in September 2015
When you walk into the Queen Street Commons Café, it quickly becomes apparent that something feels different. It’s hard to put your finger on what the difference is but newcomers to the space often look around them in wonder, trying to figure it out. When you step back and take a look, there are a myriad of things going on – people clustered at tables while others sit at their laptops or read a book, always people moving about, a constant buzz of lively conversation, dishes clattering and music playing. Café regulars walk in with purpose, greetings for those around them and the confidence of knowing that they belong and are welcomed. Each of these pieces form a strand of the complex web that is the Queen Street Commons Café, creating a space that is as intricate, delicate and strong as a spiders web.
We asked folk who work in the Café to help us reflect on what it is that makes the Café a warm and welcoming place, but one in which so many diverse, often disparate things take place. This was inspired by a comment from Kayli who remarked: Everyday we gather a bunch of people together, many who have not done food service work, to respond to the orders of the long line of people (which sometimes stretches out the door) who are expecting food service. And somehow these things work together, but they shouldn’t. This is just one of the opposites that form the core of the Café.
About the Café
The Café is a place of welcome and integration in the downtown, where people from all walks of life gather around food, coffee or tea, or around the tables – in often surprisingly diverse exchanges and conversations. We serve 350 customers per day with delicious, affordable vegetarian meals, prepared through Maurita’s Kitchen (where 20-30 volunteers gather daily to make good food possible); complemented by coffee roasted fresh each day, creative tea options (including some grown by our own garden projects), and delicious desserts.
Many events take place in the café every day, including gatherings like the Speak English Café (with Mennonite Coalition for Refugee support), Open Space (with Extend A Family), movie nights (with the Commons Studio), musical performances, graduations of entrepreneurs who proudly present their business ideas, graduations of the Local Democracy course hosted by The Working Centre, the annual MEDA breakfast, all-candidates election panels, community group meetings and presentations, and various classes of students.
The Café also sells Working Centre Community Enterprise soaps, body products, gift certificates, roasted coffee beans and more, complemented by a wide range of products made by people/small businesses affiliated with The Working Centre. Books for Sustainable Living also has a spot, it is an interesting collection of books we sell about community engagement, intentional living and social, economic and environmental analysis.
Leaving Space for Others
These are the regular, day to day elements of the Café and they call for us all to weave the pieces together so that anyone who wants to be involved is welcome. Hsain describes his role in the café as hosting – “there is a tradition of hosting at the Café that invites people from all elements of life into the space so that when they come together new things can arise…. Backed by The Working Centre’s deeply rooted values, some examples of the things that can be created with this tradition of hosting are new friendships, micro-communities, and partnerships.”
This weaving or hosting role is not something that is easy. It is “work that challenges norms as we practice inclusion among such a mixed group of people”, says Kayli. The work is to balance diverse personalities, wants and needs, in a place where people feel ownership of the space and eagerly offer their thoughts, ideas, concerns and suggestions. We work to create a space where people can reintroduce themselves each day – if problems emerged yesterday, can we look past this moment today and invite them into working on shifting this behavior? If we are truly a welcoming space, how do we not exclude people, but constantly invite them into what it is to be a part of shared space? This requires a new way of thinking for all of us, where we build the habits that leave space for others.
Misha tells the story of someone learning and playing her favourite song on the piano just because she asked him if he knew it. One day, as he was playing Misha’s song, someone in the Café wrote a note on a napkin and set it on the piano. The napkin said “haters always gonna hate. Ignore them, you’re awesome!”. The person was responding to the fact that earlier someone had emphatically asked the piano player to stop playing. Amy notes that it is moments like this that have a humanizing aspect to them. It is people being themselves in the fullness of their being and working out the tension of sharing space with others. It is people taking ownership of the space and demonstrating it by their support of others, by their pitching in to help when things get tight and by just being present. It is people collecting the mugs that have been taken outside to the back alley, it is people filling the water jug when it gets low, it is people reaching out to each other, and people coming to soak up the vibe. As Eric says, each person has a voice and has a story and the Café is a place where people can come, be themselves and contribute in whatever way they have to offer.
Daily Work of Hosting
While this sounds magical in some ways, it is held in the same way the spider builds its web – methodically, in a disciplined way, that requires an endless list of small, seemingly mundane tasks. There are lots of cleaning jobs, the meticulous work of food service, the welcoming and training of the rotating group of volunteers, washing dishes and tables.
Kayli describes the range of work each day as moving from serving people, connecting with a frustrated person who has come to the Café for support, receiving craft items to add to the goods for sale, talking to someone who is playing music on their cell phone and disturbing others, checking the laundry, connecting with Maurita’s Kitchen, greeting a past volunteer who has come back to visit, thanking the person who has just played the piano, helping someone to track down a book they read about in Good Work News and enjoying a conversation about it, helping volunteers find tasks in a lull, helping to weave the symphony of food service when the line-up of customers grows. And in the midst of all this, always looking up to greet each person.
A Web of Complexity
This web of complexity is delightful to watch and to be part of. Everyone who works within the web talks about the personal change that comes from the disciplines and the joy of leaving space for others. It is about holding the virtues and practices so that the simple idea of welcoming each person forms a complex web of informal connections and surprising moments. We try to weave the strands of the web, let the connections develop, and leave space so that when you walk in the door, you feel at home.
