Momo's Cafe CIC Start up
Donation protected
Let me tell you the story of Momos...
In 2017 single mother of one, Claire Rigby, had the idea to open up a community cafe in the heart of St Helens, a small town in the north of England that has been heavily affected by austerity and mental healt, it would be a place where the community come together to participate in activities and make new friends, with the ethos to combat loneliness. The cafe opened in December 2017 and began, almost instantly, to take on a life of its own. As the first months passed by, more and more people came through the door with a large spectrum of mental health issues and learning and sensory difficulties. Claire has extensive experience with working with young people with autism and mental health issues and had already started an autism club for children and adults in the town to come together to play, make new friends and gather the support they needed from each other. This escalated quickly and a community had started to grow at Momo’s with other community groups, charities and professional services all wanting to be a part of the Momo’s family.
The cafe began quickly to offer other services, from bereavement drop in groups, to breastfeeding support, help with family trees, suicide awareness training and many many other kinds of support that focused on all of the bespoke needs of the town. Momo’s gained a lot of support from local families who used the cafe as a place to be able to take time out together playing board games, eating in a safe environment, listening to stories, singing and having fun. We also worked with other businesses and CIC’s in the town to provide a wrap around service for everyone, a community hub for people to come together and work together to build a stronger and old fashioned perspective of a community; somewhere that someone could walk in at any time and meet a new friend.
However, things were not good with the building and Momo’s was subjected to numerous floods during the time they were open. This had a massive impact on the business as within the first week of opening they experienced a large flood which wiped out £2.4k of opening stock leading in environmental health shutting down the entire basement area until the water issues were fixed, after 12 months the repair work done by the letting company was not complete and they could no longer gain contents insurance for their stock or employers and public liability; which left them unable to open. This had impacted them over the entire 12 months they were open as they had no storage in the building to be able to expand their menu and store any of the equipment needed to run efficiently and successfully, as every time it rained the basement would surge with water. This left the cafe with access to only half of their building; this began to get worse when the damp began to travel up the stairs and into the kitchen causing the last of the food storage area to be inaccessible and unusable because of mould.
Momos has now found a new venue in which to operate that will allow them to run to the full activity plan and also has the storage area needed to be able to serve the amount and choice of food to get them to function to a level which will keep them afloat in the ever changing economy - the previous building did not allow this due to water and electrical damage and access/storage restrictions.
Because of the nature in which Momo’s had to adjust and adapt the business monthly in order to stay open and keep customers coming back, we have had to change our thinking of how we are going to progress and be able to make enough profit to keep going, with a limited menu this was extremely hard to do. Since closing, the people of the town have been very verbal in how they want Momo’s to move forward and would like us to keep going as more of a community base in which they can relax and feel safe whilst eating, drinking and socialising with friends. So we would like to merge this into being able to provide the food establishment from the original plan as well as the community centre they became. After listening to feedback and reviews, it is imperative that we get back on our feet in the new venue ASAP as we have become an integral part of the community with the support we offer through various professional services that have become part of the team.
As we have gained a large community family from people with a range of disabilities, both learning and physical, we would like to work alongside these people to offer more services, for example, sensory breakfast time, training, and support with referrals. We have also been working very closely with The Coalition of Disabled People, a charity which offers opportunities to disabled people, to help train their service users on customer services, catering and independent living skills through work placements and experience. We want to expand this by becoming a training centre for people with learning difficulties to be able to go onto employment. We will hopefully be able to offer work placements, entry level qualifications and employability skills.
We have also implemented pen and paper games and role-play activities such as Dungeons and Dragons etc and other weekly events such as live music, magic gatherings into the business plan, alongside some of the evening events which operated from the previous venue, local history discussions, creative writing groups and poetry evenings. We will also be continuing with our knitting and crochet well-being groups, meditation, stress and anxiety workshops, new baby support and arts and crafts sessions for all age ranges. We will also continue with our school holiday sessions that were hugely popular and more often than not, Sold Out! We will also be opening up a recovery cafe for people suffering with addiction to help repair family relationships through support and activities, as well as a welcome cafe for asylum seekers and refugees to help them to become part of the town in what could only be a scary time for them.
Due to not being able open for the last three months we are looking at raising the money to be able to complete the move into the new property. As we have had no income since November we will need to raise the money for the deposit and some renovation work, as well as our starting stock. We are hopeful that people will recognise the significant way in which this small cafe has become such a huge part of the town. We still have more work to do to reach more people that need help, by providing a homely and calm environment that is accessible to all. We will be displaying the names of all the people who have helped re-build the newer, bigger and better Momo’s through donations and volunteering on our friendship wall as recognition for their contributions.
In 2017 single mother of one, Claire Rigby, had the idea to open up a community cafe in the heart of St Helens, a small town in the north of England that has been heavily affected by austerity and mental healt, it would be a place where the community come together to participate in activities and make new friends, with the ethos to combat loneliness. The cafe opened in December 2017 and began, almost instantly, to take on a life of its own. As the first months passed by, more and more people came through the door with a large spectrum of mental health issues and learning and sensory difficulties. Claire has extensive experience with working with young people with autism and mental health issues and had already started an autism club for children and adults in the town to come together to play, make new friends and gather the support they needed from each other. This escalated quickly and a community had started to grow at Momo’s with other community groups, charities and professional services all wanting to be a part of the Momo’s family.
The cafe began quickly to offer other services, from bereavement drop in groups, to breastfeeding support, help with family trees, suicide awareness training and many many other kinds of support that focused on all of the bespoke needs of the town. Momo’s gained a lot of support from local families who used the cafe as a place to be able to take time out together playing board games, eating in a safe environment, listening to stories, singing and having fun. We also worked with other businesses and CIC’s in the town to provide a wrap around service for everyone, a community hub for people to come together and work together to build a stronger and old fashioned perspective of a community; somewhere that someone could walk in at any time and meet a new friend.
However, things were not good with the building and Momo’s was subjected to numerous floods during the time they were open. This had a massive impact on the business as within the first week of opening they experienced a large flood which wiped out £2.4k of opening stock leading in environmental health shutting down the entire basement area until the water issues were fixed, after 12 months the repair work done by the letting company was not complete and they could no longer gain contents insurance for their stock or employers and public liability; which left them unable to open. This had impacted them over the entire 12 months they were open as they had no storage in the building to be able to expand their menu and store any of the equipment needed to run efficiently and successfully, as every time it rained the basement would surge with water. This left the cafe with access to only half of their building; this began to get worse when the damp began to travel up the stairs and into the kitchen causing the last of the food storage area to be inaccessible and unusable because of mould.
Momos has now found a new venue in which to operate that will allow them to run to the full activity plan and also has the storage area needed to be able to serve the amount and choice of food to get them to function to a level which will keep them afloat in the ever changing economy - the previous building did not allow this due to water and electrical damage and access/storage restrictions.
Because of the nature in which Momo’s had to adjust and adapt the business monthly in order to stay open and keep customers coming back, we have had to change our thinking of how we are going to progress and be able to make enough profit to keep going, with a limited menu this was extremely hard to do. Since closing, the people of the town have been very verbal in how they want Momo’s to move forward and would like us to keep going as more of a community base in which they can relax and feel safe whilst eating, drinking and socialising with friends. So we would like to merge this into being able to provide the food establishment from the original plan as well as the community centre they became. After listening to feedback and reviews, it is imperative that we get back on our feet in the new venue ASAP as we have become an integral part of the community with the support we offer through various professional services that have become part of the team.
As we have gained a large community family from people with a range of disabilities, both learning and physical, we would like to work alongside these people to offer more services, for example, sensory breakfast time, training, and support with referrals. We have also been working very closely with The Coalition of Disabled People, a charity which offers opportunities to disabled people, to help train their service users on customer services, catering and independent living skills through work placements and experience. We want to expand this by becoming a training centre for people with learning difficulties to be able to go onto employment. We will hopefully be able to offer work placements, entry level qualifications and employability skills.
We have also implemented pen and paper games and role-play activities such as Dungeons and Dragons etc and other weekly events such as live music, magic gatherings into the business plan, alongside some of the evening events which operated from the previous venue, local history discussions, creative writing groups and poetry evenings. We will also be continuing with our knitting and crochet well-being groups, meditation, stress and anxiety workshops, new baby support and arts and crafts sessions for all age ranges. We will also continue with our school holiday sessions that were hugely popular and more often than not, Sold Out! We will also be opening up a recovery cafe for people suffering with addiction to help repair family relationships through support and activities, as well as a welcome cafe for asylum seekers and refugees to help them to become part of the town in what could only be a scary time for them.
Due to not being able open for the last three months we are looking at raising the money to be able to complete the move into the new property. As we have had no income since November we will need to raise the money for the deposit and some renovation work, as well as our starting stock. We are hopeful that people will recognise the significant way in which this small cafe has become such a huge part of the town. We still have more work to do to reach more people that need help, by providing a homely and calm environment that is accessible to all. We will be displaying the names of all the people who have helped re-build the newer, bigger and better Momo’s through donations and volunteering on our friendship wall as recognition for their contributions.
Organizer and beneficiary
Momos Cafe
Organizer
England
Claire Rigby
Beneficiary