Shrublands Trust Coffee and Advice shop
Situated on the Shrublands Council Estate, at 7 Broom Road, the Shrublands Trust Coffee and Advice shop was founded by members of the Shrublands Christian Fellowship and their former pastor, Graham Woolgar, and officially opened by Steve Chalke in 1990.
On Monday mornings, the charity 'Foodlink' sells fruit and vegetables at very reasonable prices to local residents and on Thursdays and Fridays another charity has been raising money by serving food. So although it says 'Coffee Shop' in the title, it really feels more like a community cafe with a lovely atmosphere.
Besides our usual lunch for the elderly on Tuesdays (Young at Heart) run by Beverley Warner and Caren Kane, we have also begun to provide breakfasts and lunch on Wednesdays: A while back we were approached by one of the Shirley Police Constables who asked whether we would be willing to offer the coffee shop as a facility for the Probation Service to work from and this scheme started up last December. The Probation Service now provides a professional chef who oversees and trains a team of people involved in Community Payback rather than going to prison. They learn to work in a team and the skills to help them go straight in the future. There is always a member of the Shrublands Christian Fellowship present on Wednesdays to take customers' money.
The team arrive at 9:00a.m and get the kitchen ready and then we start serving breakfast at 9.30 and this continues until 11.30. A bacon or sausage sandwich costs £1 whilst a full English breakfast with sausages, bacon, eggs, beans and fried bread (or toast or bread and butter) costs £2. The cooked breakfasts are especially popular with the local shopkeepers as we offer a takeaway service and they've probably been working hard since the early hours.
In the meantime, John, the chef, is overseeing the production of lunch and we find that some of the team get extremely interested in learning to cook and they provide really good and tasty food.
Lunch starts at 12.30 and is served until around 2.30 p.m. It is filling, tasty and extremely good value for money and I cannot praise the chef highly enough.
We have enjoyed the support of local residents and local churches but would like to tell the wider community about it as well.
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