A cosy café founded on a bedrock of charity, generosity, and community spirit has turned a year old despite the odds.
The Paper Cup Coffee shop in Queen Square celebrated a year of serving up hot beverages and homemade cakes this week after a fierce battle with the soaring cost of living crisis caused the business to operate at a loss for six months.
Owner Michelle Langan said: "Our first year has been a real rollercoaster. We opened when we were still in and out of Covid-19 restrictions, so the first year has been a real learning curve, but there's been a lot of massive positives as well. We've got a lot of regular customers, and also some celebrity supporters - before Christmas Tim Burgess came to do a shift at the shop after hearing about us on social media, and Frank Cottrell-Boyce has come on as one of our patrons."
READ MORE: Charlatans Tim Burgess works shift at Liverpool homeless charity coffee shop
Paper Cup Coffee was started by a group of volunteers who, after seven years of providing food, drinks and clothes to people on the streets of Liverpool, decided to broaden their horizons.
Customers at the café are invited to "pay it forward" when picking up their morning cappuccino, meaning homeless customers can eat and drink for free.
Michelle said: "It came about through lockdown. A lot of the homeless people we knew were taken in as part of the Everyone In campaign, and so we were looking at the help we were offering and whether we needed to change. We had the idea about starting a coffee shop, and worked on developing that idea to see how we could offer something that wasn't available in Liverpool.
"Before, we'd go out with food, drinks, with clothing, and support people in that way. But for us, it was about more than that - it was a way of engaging with people and trying to get to the root of their problems, and getting them to engage with services to get them off the streets. Now we're doing the same kind of thing, but instead of us going to people, people are coming to us
"It's definitely better because we've got a place where people can actually come and get out of the cold and have a chat. One of the homeless guys said to us the other day that our shop is the only place he can feel like a human being, because he gets treated like every other customer. He's not being judged by anyone. That's a really important part of what we do. It's not just about giving food and drink, it's about giving people dignity as well.
"We wanted to be a place where anyone who was homeless could come and not feel intimidated, where they could feel the same. Every day in the shop we've got a mix of customers and our homeless customers and not treated differently to anyone else."
She added: "There have been times over the past year where I didn't even know if we'd make it to one year, because we were making a loss for the first six months. So I am really proud, and it's really good that we've got people supporting us. To be running a café in a cost of living crisis, when people haven't got much money, knowing they're choosing to spend what they've got in our shop is really nice."
READ NEXT
Chief inspector owed thousands to criminal suspect with 'links to ex drug dealer'
Taxi driver bragged sleeping passenger had 'no clue' about sex assault
Merseyrail services delayed and cancelled after 'signalling problems'
Dad's two-word response as he's jailed for 'revenge' attack
I was in Disneyland four weeks go but now I can't look after the kids
