Cafe Marche News

Cafe Marche Updates

As I'm sure most of you know, Lodge Home (the late T.O.M Home) has been in business for 2 weeks now. Cafe Marche is welcoming a variety of people from all walks of life, and taking all things into consideration, we are doing wonderfully.

The Cool Stuff:

*We have regulars

*We are meeting the neighbors that we didn't know existed all these 5 years and a bit that we've been here!

*The people that like us, or the cafe, or the food here, bring their friends, and their friends bring their friends, and a happy network is in formation, and is fast expanding. Just the other day, we had over 40 customers within 24 hours! Nice stuff!

*The live concerts are a big thumbs up! The alcohol drinking crowd love the Friday and Saturday evenings when Up Country performs live music at Cafe Marche!!

*We have a good reputation for yummy baked goodies!

*And there's tons more.

Need working on stuff:

*The menu needs some tweaking.

*Our service towards the customers needs to be more professional.

*We need to make sure that we are making a decent profit from everything that we sell here.

*We are very short-staffed.

*To name just the tip of the tip of the massive ice-berg.

Stuff YOU should know before dropping by.

And here's the stuff you would like to know if you are planning on paying us a visit. (this information will get to everybody officially in an upcoming AHM)

If you are not planning on ordering a drink or something to eat at Cafe Marche, than please do not enter the cafe. The Cafe Marche is not an extension of Lodge Home. We are running a business, and therefore, we will be treating you as a customer, and we will also charge you.

The "we will be treating you as a customer" part is very important.

Upon entering Cafe Marche, (like any other cafe)

You should expect the 「いらっしゃいませ～」greeting instead of the, God-bless-you-brother-greeting, you are used to hearing from Family members.

We will lead you to an open seat, and after a,

「こちらがメニューになります。ご注文がお決まりになりましたら、お呼び下さい」, we will expect you to order something to drink, or eat, or both. (Just for your information, the cheapest thing on the menu is a cookie, or hot soup. Only 100 yen!! *wink*)

English is generally a taboo in the cafe, (esp. English spoken at volume 10) as most customers shy away from, and feel out of place when English is being spoken between the staff, or even between customers.

Oh, and naturally, hugging, (and kissing too) isn't encouraged. Like I noted earlier, this isn't an extension of a Family Home. We're running a business. So if you want to do the hugging, the kissing, the God-bless-you-brother/sister-stuff, and catch up on how things are going with the reboot, the changes, the ministries, etc., than 4th floor and 5th floor are the places where that will be happening.

If you're interested in how we run the cafe, than by all means, please don't hesitate to drop by Cafe Marche and check it out! But keep in mind that you will be "checking it out" as a customer, and consequently, you will be spending some money.

If you've been to the cafe, and you were met with the "God bless yous" and the hugs, than that was a MISTAKE! It was a mistake, because customers shy away because of it, our business suffers, and the Mission will suffer in the long run, as the only customers that will be dropping by are people who are cool with the hugging stuff, like TFI members, and foreigners. But that's not exactly what we have in mind.

Whoop! That's how it runs, baby! Keep yourself updated by checking this blog out. I'm working on posting the pictures, but my comp has some issues, so it will have to wait.

Oh! Just one more thing.

Stop calling Lodge Home!

What I meant was, stop calling our Lodge Home's Phone number, as it is no longer Lodge Home's phone number. It is Cafe Marche's number now, you will be contacting the cafe instead of the Home. If you want to get in touch with Lodge Home, call the mobile phones of the members of Lodge Home. Because otherwise, you will most likely NOT get through to whoever you are trying to contact. This will also be included in the upcoming AHM with some numbers you could ring if you must.