Service-Heart-Joy

Service-Heart-Joy is a cute, cosy cafe in Wimbledon, London. The inspiration to open Service-Heart-Joy came from a beautiful cafe in Bristol run by students of the Sri Chinmoy Centre there. The idea of having something similar in London seemed thrilling. The opportunity offered itself and after a year of searching and a year of solicitors' correspondence the dream became reality. The first time I saw the cafe there was a beautiful sunrise and it was raining slightly and right over the cafe was a stunning rainbow.

The shape of the cafe is like a wedge of cheese, a piece of cake, or as one lady said, like the bows of a boat. It feels like the cafe is a boat carrying its passengers across the sea of ignorance to the shore of inner harmony. The atmosphere is tranquil and spiritual. We have five tables inside and two outside with three of us working there.

Although it is small, it feels like we are connected to all the other enterprises run by students of Sri Chinmoy. Often we call on the telephone to San Francisco, Canada, New Zealand and Europe and we share inspiration and recipies. One good friend who runs a cafe in Ottawa, Canada had a customer who came to England. She had mentioned Service-Heart-Joy to him. Funnily enough he went to a party which we happened to be catering for and he saw our leaflets. He was so excited to have found us and spent the whole evening telling everyone about the co-incidence!

Originally the cafe had a more mundane name but incredibly Sri Chinmoy was inspired to give the business the name Service-Heart-Joy. These are the qualities that the business embodies. The point of food (apart from surivial) is to give us joy. Everyone in the world has beauty, joy, harmony and love inside their hearts and by serving people we have the special and sweet opportunity to see these qualities. The mind tries to plan and analyse for success, but the heart just loves to serve people and give others joy.

The cafe opens from 8am to 5pm Mon-Thurs, 8am to 9pm Fri, 9am to 5pm Sat and is closed on Sundays.

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