Crosscare Community Cafés

Crosscare Community Cafés have recently reopened and are welcoming people back to indoor dining, serving excellent breakfasts and lunches to hundreds of people each week in need of nutritious meals and friendly company.

Over the past two years, staff at the Cafés made sure that despite restrictions, takeaway meals were available every day to those who rely on the Cafés for food.

Sisters Louise Lawless and Paula Harris, who with their staff and volunteers manage the cafés, said that older people living alone had found the Pandemic especially hard.  Both Louise and Paula are delighted to be fully open today, serving breakfast and lunches from 8 am.

As well as providing people in need with a hot meal, they say it is equally important to welcome people back indoors for the vital social interaction and supports they have missed for so long.

Crosscare Cafés are open to everyone in the local area.  Staff and volunteers ensure that each person is treated with respect and dignity regardless of their circumstances.  Every effort is made to invite all local community members to drop by for a coffee, breakfast or lunch.

The Cafés provide food and support for a range of people – many of those who come to them have problems with addiction or mental health issues, others are experiencing homelessness.  Increasingly, older people living alone have come to rely on the friendly faces and warm welcome in the Community cafés for social interaction.  This is the essential connection that Paula and Louise say people have missed most in the past two years.

Over the past six months, staff have worked closely with the new Food Poverty Service in Crosscare.

Families and individuals who come to the Crosscare Foodbanks and through the Cafés are offered the support of dedicated staff member who looks at all the concerns and issues people and families face that led them to rely on Foodbanks.

As well as providing food, the Food Poverty caseworkers help them with the support they may need with addiction or debt, domestic abuse, or simply accessing proper social support and services.

Crosscare Community Café in Dublin 1 is located on Portland Row, with breakfast available from 8am until 10am and Lunch from 12pm to 2pm from Monday to Friday.  

Takeaway meals will also still be available on each of these days.