In the best cafe ever, wherein we all watch each other’s back, notice a falter, the need for a break, the wild of a new story in bright eyes all focussed on cutting new sourdough, tomatoes and red onions for a salad or on finding the right knife for this, the best ladle for that, we work with the story. And there is always one. We come in from different places, different lives, different lifetimes, and as a dynamic, we help each other in the Servery. We decide we can lift the customers, be gentle with their dithers, their extra loud voices in a life wherein they probably wonder if anyone will hear them ever again. We work together with the young, who falter and apologise even before they order. Then there are those with entitlement and with children who just might fight the expected roles laid out for them, encouraged as they are to shout for ice cream or half a something and without that bit, or that bit. We oblige. Obviously. But the Servery has options, and even as we don’t ever want to judge another human being, I think it is survival in the world of service. Behind the scenes in a busy cafe, we might eye roll at rudeness, not that it ever shows because we know that everyone everywhere has stuff in their lives and it is often hard to leave it outside when they come in. It seems to me that when folk move into an environmental enclosure, that stuff can bubble up, uninvited. People are people and all very human. It thinks me.

Things don’t matter much, although the bright welcome of a cafe definitely does. If the layout is spacious and obliging when it comes to Can we push four tables together because there are 12 of us, mostly kids? and we say Of course, and help them scrabble-bunch tables for two into a crocodile of wood, shifting flower vases and finding more chairs, then we see smiles and thankyous all around us like butterflies, because people matter and things don’t. Priveleged, entitled, arrogant, humble, apologetic, cautious, all human behaviour. And we know this and know ourselves in each situation because we have all been there in at least one of those. I, for one, remember well the fear of going into a cafe or restaurant with five kids hungry as wolves with a flock of sheep just there. I just knew there would be mayhem even though I was strict on behaviour and respect. But a lot is down to the staff in the cafe or restaurant because they have eyes. They also have choice. Everyone, let’s be honest, is fed to the back teeth with judgement and admonishment, and most kids can read body language from birth.

So we use our eyes. We can see when someone comes in and isn’t confident, and warmth.rises in us. because people matter and things don’t. We read the silent language and slide in, bright eyed, no matter how many orders are waiting, no matter any wee issues with machinery, problems, with deliveries. We just make it work because this cafe is all about people and not just how many come through the door, even as this is important. It’s more about a lovely welcoming place to come to, about the smiles, the way we adapt to a customer’s request, the simplicity of the work of service.

People matter, things don’t. The eyes have it.