To the customer who left us this beautiful note

I’m writing this post in response to the customer who left us this incredible note at the cafe:

———————————————————————————
”Thank you Cafe Sol for the absolutely wonderful, most spectacular & dreamy experience. I actually don’t mean to exaggerate.

It’s true. This place was so welcoming and warm, and I felt so happy just being here. I hope this cafe thrives for many years to come & welcomes many other lost souls, happy spirits, good tea/coffee-seekers (because they will surely find some here)

Also, I’d like to thank my server personally. I didn’t quite catch his name but I’m sure he was allergic to cats (?). Thank you bhai. I had my first ever slice of apple pie and it was perfect.”
———————————————————————————-

Awwad (your server, and cafe co-owner) is not allergic to cats. In facts, he’s an animal-lover with an adorable family of cats living at his house. He was having a reaction to some unidentified allergen (maybe the blast of adorableness to this sweet note you wrote).

I (Faraz, the other co-owner) would’ve loved to welcome you personally too! At the time of your visit, I was probably hiding at iO next-door, writing my latest newspaper column.

About a year ago, Awwad and I opened Cafe Sol at great risk to ourselves. We let go of our thriving but rather unfulfilling careers and took a leap of faith with a cafe, hoping that it would one day transcend to an inclusive community center. I gave up my medical practice, and Awwad let go of some lucrative opportunities in the IT world.

Naturally, we’ve been busy for the past few days doing that thing most business-owners do: asking ourselves if it was all worth it. What have we achieved through an entire year of endless physical and mental labor, and enormous financial expense? Fussing over our menu and our collection of board games; quarreling over various artistic and stylistic choices for the cafe; enduring agonizingly slow business days that are common in the first year of cafe or restaurant business, especially in Bahria. Was it worth it?

And then we received your note, which said ‘Yes’.

Great memories have been made at Cafe Sol this year; the visual evidence of which is stringed up on our proud panel of tiny photographs, next to a big yellow box that symbolizes the sun. It is where we plan on putting up your note as well, if not at the community bulletin board at iO - The Space.

Thank you so much for acknowledging our journey. A cafe can be much more than a purveyor of good coffee and food; it can be a community in itself, and we’re just getting started building this place up.