Liverpool café opens to create family Christmas Day for anyone who’s alone

Liverpool café, Catherine Braidy is opening on Christmas Day so nobody needs to be alone.

Catherine Braidy on Aigburth Road will be open for three hours on December 25, from 10am to 1pm… and owner Cath Williams can’t wait to welcome people in.

“People might come in alone, but hopefully they won’t feel alone once they’re here,” she says.

“We always have a lovely atmosphere in here on Christmas Day and people can either just pop in for a few minutes or stay for the full three hours.

“There are no little conversations, we all chat together, and it’s a really nice start to the day. This is what Christmas is all about.”

Cath, 48, will be serving hot drinks and pastries helped by son Tom, 22, who’s home from university.

“He loves it as much as I do,” she smiles. “I go on about him all the time to the customers and so they get a chance to put a face to the name, and he gets to meet a lot of the people I talk about too.”

Apart from 2020 because of Covid, Cath has been opening specially on Christmas Day ever since she opened the boutique cake and coffee parlour after moving from the Baltic.

“I feel like there’s a need for it,” she says. “And the same people come every year along with new people who come by.

“And it’s lovely.

“It’s somewhere to go for people who might otherwise be on their own and have no-one to talk to all day. I hate to think of anyone being lonely on Christmas Day, and it helps me as much as anyone else.

“Years ago, we’d go round to friends’ houses and wish them a Merry Christmas on December 25, and this is an extension of that.

“We are very much part of the community, and if you want to be part of it, you have to give something back.

“We raised funds and now have a defibrillator outside the shop, and we collected for The Florrie community hub’s food bank.”

Cath goes on: “We have a real mix of people on Christmas Day, young and old, regulars and people who’ve never come before.

“I know one girl from Ireland whose work means she can’t get home for the holidays and she’ll be calling in, we get people who say hello on their way home from church, and it’s great that we are really accessible here.

“On the radio and TV, all we’re hearing just now is how Christmas is a time for family and being together, so if people don’t have anybody – or even if they do – they can ‘be together’ with us.”