The Playground Cafe is opening at St. Stephen's on June 7
Like many things at St. Stephen's, The Playground Cafe is open to everyone. It's about building community, not growing the population in the pews
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church is going where no church (at least no church in Sebastopol) has gone before. They’re opening an open-air cafe for young families—and everyone else. The cafe is called The Playground, and it is having a grand opening celebration on Saturday, June 7, from 8 am to 4 pm.
“We are opening an outdoor cafe based around a play area that is designed specifically for families with young children, as a place that they can connect and talk and hang out, and kids can play freely and be safe. But we also hope it will be an intergenerational space for the community, where folks of all ages can meet. I’ve heard neighbors talking about having their book clubs meet there and meeting up with friends there. So that is the hope for the space—that it is a community hub,” said the Reverend Christy Laborda-Harris, the rector of St. Stephens.
Laborda-Harris, who has young children herself, came up with the vision for The Playground Cafe, while chatting with friends at a local brewery as their children played nearby.
“It was that initial conversation, paired with other conversations and discernment about what church can be and how it can be in community led to this dream to create a space that was designed to build community and to be a place of connection.”
The Playground was adamantly NOT designed to lure unsuspecting atheists, agnostics and other religionists to St. Stephens and turn them into Episcopalians.
“From the very moment we first talked about this at St Stephen’s, it has been clear that the goal of the cafe is not to be feeding people into the Sunday worship. It is not to try to make more Christians or something like that,” Laborda-Harris said. “The goal of the cafe is to build community and to provide a space for relationships.”
“Part of building community is being a place where people can hopefully have deep conversations,” she said. “Not every conversation will be a deep one. Some of them will be light, of course. But I have found that whether you’re ordering a coffee or standing at the seesaw or the slide, you end up talking to people and sometimes those conversations go real places. Part of the hope of the cafe is that some of those deep conversations might be spiritual in nature. And, frankly, where do you draw the line between life and spirituality? The two co-mingle.”
And by spiritual Laborda-Harris doesn’t necessarily mean Christian.
“We believe that we don’t have to be on the same spiritual journey to journey together,” she said. “I think about that more in terms of ‘the salad versus the melting pot’ concept. So the idea is not that we all become the same, but that we retain our unique identities spiritually, yet we can walk that journey and learn from one another in the process and help each other go further,” she said.
“I think of the labyrinth outside my office. That has ancient roots in the Christian tradition. But it is walked by folks of all different faith backgrounds, and we can literally be on it together, doing a group walk and holding different intentions and having very distinct experiences, but doing that together,” she said.
The Playground Cafe aims to offer more than just spiritual and conversational sustenance. It will have food, a full coffee bar (with coffee from Retrograde), as well as local Sonoma wines and beer.
“For the food, we’re aiming for nutritious, we’re aiming for fun and playful—food that kids will enjoy and that folks of all ages will enjoy. Also appropriate for eating outside—so a little more on the rustic, simple side. We’re trying to hit a happy medium, a balance between we want to offer quality ingredients and organic where possible, but also we want it to be reasonably priced.”
Think breakfast burritos, sandwiches, hamburgers, as well as kids’ items like peanut butter and fruit with honey. They’re also working on creating a small plates menu and shareable nibbles for adults.
The Playground’s cafe manager, Lucas Steitz, was one of the owners of Emilou’s cafe near Fircrest Market.
“We really were looking for someone who was entrepreneurial, had a background in coffee and food, was eager and willing to do something new, and ideally, was somebody who has a gift of engaging with people and helping be the face of the cafe and Lucas has that,” Laborda-Harris said. “As I’ve mentioned him around town, people have just been ecstatic, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love Lucas!’ We’re really, really excited to have him in the kitchen, leading the cafe.”
The cafe had a soft opening on May 17 for friends and family, but since everyone invited more friends, around 150 people showed up, which was a surprise.
“It was real,” Laborda-Harris said with a laugh, “and it gave us a great feeling for what we need to work on in these weeks before the grand opening.”
The grand opening for The Playground Cafe will happen on Saturday, June 7, from 8 am to 4 pm, at St. Stephens Episcopal Church, 500 Robinson Road, Sebastopol. There will be live music and lots of activities for kids (and the young at heart), including glitter tattoos by Toyworks, rock painting, games, cards and yard games. Live music includes Julie & the Wheelbarrow at 11:30 am and Ali and Warren of Mini Music at 2 pm.
What a wonderful new nexus of Sebastopol community! A ray of hope and embodied connection in these disembodied times. Sarah and I plan to be there at the opening celebration on June 7. Just what we need these days….
Sounds great--and wow, Retrograde coffee and delicious food!