Paper Cup Coffee celebrates Liverpool Pride with a special guest barista

Paper Cup Coffee in Queen Square is celebrating Liverpool Pride this Saturday (July 25) with the help of its latest special guest barista.

The coffee shop, which supports people experiencing homelessness in the city, is just a few minutes away from the starting point for this year’s Pride march at Clayton Square and St John’s Beacon.

It will be opening from 9am on Saturday ahead of the march which sets off at 11.30am, and getting a hand serving customers from the cover star of this month’s Attitude magazine, city political leader Carl Cashman.

Carl is the third guest barista to show his support for Paper Cup, following celebrity stints behind the counter from The Charlatans’ frontman Tim Burgess and rock band Enter Shikari.

Paper Cup founder Michelle Langan says she hopes the coffee shop can be a friendly gathering point for anyone planning to join the march.

She said:

“Sometimes people go on their own and they can feel a bit of trepidation, and it’s always good if you’re with a few people because you can have a laugh, so I thought it would be nice if we were a pre-march point for people to meet,”

“The thing about our shop is everybody’s welcome, and it’s about challenging stereotypes. Our customers experience prejudice in their own way so there is a similar message to Pride and we wanted to do something more to show our support this year.

“Carl has been a very vocal supporter of the LGBT community, and he’s just done an Attitude cover this month so I thought it would be good if he could come in.

“He said yes, so he’ll be there first thing in the morning to help with our homeless service and then after that hopefully we’ll have lots of customers who are going to Pride coming in to see him and get served by him.

“Carl will be our third guest barista, after Tim Burgess from The Charlatans kicked it off. He’s been in a couple of times when The Charlatans have played in Liverpool, he’s been a big supporter and he’s come on board as one of our patrons.

“We also had Enter Shikari helping out earlier this year. We had a queue down the street when they were in and lots of the people who came for coffee had been sleeping out the night before to get tickets for their gig.

“I’d love to have more guest baristas because I think every person who comes in brings their own diverse group of people who are finding out about the shop and the work we do. Obviously fans of Tim Burgess were a different age group to fans of Enter Shikari, and now anyone coming into see Carl is going to be another different group.

“It would be amazing to get someone who’s playing at the Arena or at Anfield and I’d have loved to have got Dave Grohl in when the Foo Fighters were at Anfield, so if they play Liverpool again we could see if he had the time because I know he does a lot in America with people who are homeless.”

In addition to serving coffees and breakfast sandwiches ahead of the march, Paper Cup Coffee will also have arts and crafts with resident artist Marcus G Cotton, so people can make and wear friendship bracelets and badges before heading to the march.

Find out more on the Paper Cup Coffee website.

Find everything you need to know about Liverpool’s Pride here.

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