Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Yesterday morning, I had breakfast in the Hare’s Corner with my mum and my brother. It was my mum’s birthday, and my brother and I were delighted to make it home from Leicester and Belfast respectively on Sunday evening.

It’s not often we manage to find ourselves in the same room at the same time these days, so it was special to be together.

The Hare’s Corner is a special place to our family. The staff are amazingly kind, not just to my mum, who is a regular customer, but to all their customers. When we find ourselves home for a few hours, we often make our way over there and they always look after us so well.

I remember how, when Covid entered the world back in 2020, they used to drive dinners around to their regular customers. I’ve been present at the restaurant when people have taken unwell and they manage those situations with professionalism and calm.

They host church events and community events across the denominations. While profits are important in the life of any business, I always sense there is something much richer here in the way this place treats their customers.

They often send down a pot of tea after people have had a meal to elderly customers and they are not always charged.

You might remember a sitcom from the 1990’s called Cheers. It was about the regular clientele at a Boston Bar, and it was a place where everyone knew everyone else. They cared what was going on in each others lives, and would offer advice to each other on everything from love to what to do in tricky situations in the workplace.

The theme song to the show sang about how everyone wanted to go where everybody knows your name.

When we shared breakfast yesterday morning, we met people we hadn’t seen since our childhood who came over to the table, asked us how we were and what we were up to these days. We asked about their children and grandchildren and there was a great sense of community. When the staff found out it was mum’s birthday, they produced a slice of her favourite cake as if by magic, and came out singing Happy Birthday.

The whole café joined in and, while she was a bit embarrassed, we think she was secretly quite pleased!!

It’s amazing the lessons you can learn from a friendly neighbourhood café. These are lessons every church or community of faith should take to heart.

It is, indeed, great to go where everybody knows your name and to enter a space where everyone feels they belong.

It’s a beautiful thing to see kindness and generosity extended in such a natural way. People running the business and working there seem to genuinely appreciate their customers and find tangible ways to let them know they are valued and appreciated in this place.

Even in the busy atmosphere of preparing and serving high quality food, they make time for a chat and a few words with everyone passing through. There’s a recognition that, for many customers who live alone, this may be the only meaningful social interaction on any given day and people feel cared for.

The staff notice if someone hasn’t been there for a while and check in to see if everything is ok. Has there been a time of sickness, has there been a bereavement? Is there a problem with mobility? Would it help if someone brought their food down to them at the table rather than having to stand in a queue?

When there is care and community and a warm welcome on offer the likelihood is that people will go back often. Is that the experience for those who visit our churches?

Thankyou so much to the Cregagh Crafters who hosted last weekends coffee morning and craft sale, raising in the region of £2100 for the Fields of Life ‘I am Fed’ programme, which we heard about during Lent. We discovered that £2.50 can feed a child for a year from the produce generated by these school farms in Maridi Diocese in South Sudan. It’s a wonderful thing to see people using their talents for craft and hospitality to run such a special event which will benefit the lives of so many children living in such a difficult situation.

Looking forward to speaking again soon. Don’t forget the community picnics beginning on Tuesday 23rd June and running for 6 weeks as an opportunity to meet our neighbours. We want the church grounds to be a welcoming space where people bring a picnic, perhaps play some games with their families and, if people want to visit the church for personal prayer or to have someone pray with them, that opportunity will be available. The picnics will run from 5.30-7.30pm on Tuesdays until the end of July.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

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