Green and Gone!

We did it!!

After hours of falafel making, deliberating menus and deciding on decorations, we got Serendipity Cafe to the London Green Fair.

And it was fantastic!!

We set up Friday afternoon and continued on early Saturday morning with the help of some great Green Fair volunteers and the wonderful Ian Skelton who put in an incredible effort (thank you so much!), and even came back Sunday morning for more hard work

Raj & Fiona, helped Sri, Michelle and I serving during the day and and we had volunteers, family and friends, helping in every way they could, to make our cafe rock!

The cafe itself looked beautiful sitting in a gorgeous garden that Jay (Josh’s dad) had made, and decorated by Michelle.  We set up the bell tent with cosy rugs and cushions and pretty little crystals and trinkets. Blankets were sprawled on the green grass and it was so lovely to see our punters eating their wraps and samosas whilst basking in the afternoon sun.

Saturday afternoon was pretty hot, and we churned out cups of Mick’s homemade Apple, Cucumber & Mint juice and everyone made for our fruit sticks and watermelon slices

The feedback from customers was that our food was beautiful and that our falafels tasted like they were homemade.  We even had one customer who said ‘this is what a falafel should taste like’.  Phew – all that hard work at Joe Lambert’s kitchen paid off! And people even came back to us on Sunday, what a compliment!

Sunday we moved locations, still in the kids’ section, but closer to the action and had a moment of

‘Oh my God I can’t believe we’re at the Green Fair in Regents Park and people are eating our food and sitting at the tables surrounding us…’

- it was such a moment of realising that we have taken this cafe out of our kitchen and into the public. What a moment!  And even better was seeing Cinnamon behind us hoola hooping her hips off, hearing the ‘Umbrellabirds’ playing in the background and seeing people enjoying the activities on offer from our school.  Truly wonderful.  We were like a mini festival.

The rain set in after a couple of hours and customers retreated to the crafts marquee, where Helen Fraser, Helen Lewis-Baker and all our other wonderful teachers were running workshops, so we figured if they weren’t going to come to us we’d go to them and, as Jay did on Saturday, we took trays of chai tea and fruit sticks to the people and sold what we had.

We made about two thousand pounds though most of this has gone towards covering our set up costs (food, equipment & packaging) and leaves us with a couple hundred pounds. But what this means is that we have enough goods to cover us for at least ten or more fairs, so from here nearly everything we make will be profit.  We can reach that £10,000 pounds – no worries.

What I learnt personally was this:  If you have a dream you can do it.  How it’s going to happen isn’t always clear, but everything you need will turn up and what you think might work, might not, but at least you’ll have learnt something new and can apply it next time.

And that life truly is a collaboration.  Even when you think you’re doing something on your own, you are still working with the stars and the moon and all those people honking their horns at you at 5 in the morning. We’re all in it together.

Big THANK YOU to all the people who couldn’t make it on the day, but helped out by baking, sharing ideas and providing us with gorgeous decorations and plates etc – they are superstars Jo Macleod, Elwood ‘born to be a chef’ King, Sarah Thorne, Sarah Houghton, Elena and all the other wonderful people for baking delicious cakes and brownies. Yvette our talented artist, who made our beautiful cafe banner with love, and of course our wonderful decorator, baker and Serendipity extraordinaire Debs!

Also to the people who helped out on the weekend in anyway they could and they are Kirsty, Helen Fraser my wonderful husband Mick who stayed up all night making juice and looking after our children and the fabulous Sri, who had that kitchen organised like it was a 5 star restaurant!  And to everyone really who has just shown love and support, we couldn’t do it without you all and we hope to make this something special for everyone and take it to many more festivals and fairs and we’re even planning a tour with the ‘Umbrellabirds’.  Bring on Glastonbury!!

And a special mention to Joe from Lamberts Restaurant who loaned us his kitchen for 12hrs to make falafels, what a kind man!

With love and many thank yous!!!

Lisa and the Serendipity Crew xx