The Second Chance Café

The Second Chance Café is a pay-as-you-feel community café that operates out of the St Mary's Centre and serves as a gathering space for people from diverse backgrounds across Stoke Newington and beyond. We have three principal missions: addressing food poverty, alleviating social isolation and reducing food waste.

We address these missions by using end-of-life food, to create delicious meals on a pay-as-you-feel basis. We also encourage guests of the café to sit together at large tables, creating a space of encounter that actively breaks down prejudice and uplifts the value of people in each other's eyes.

For 5 years, a committed team of volunteers have continued to deliver the original ‘2CC’ model as it was envisaged, and today serve around 100 people per day. Sadly, the economic and social conditions that necessitated the creation of the Second Chance Café still exist today, and are arguably more prevalent than they ever have been.

The Second Day

These economic conditions hit the café hard in the Summer 2025, and meant that it had to reduce it's operating days from two days a week (Thursday & Friday), to just one. Thursdays at the Second Chance Café have been sorely missed over the past 6 months, and we have been working hard to try and gather the funds to reopen our doors twice a week.

Our Runners

We are so lucky to have three amazing volunteers - and committed runners - raising money for the Second Chance Café. On top of their own training schedules, they will be donning their trainers every Friday morning to take part in a group run, before the café opens. If you'd like, you're more than welcome to join us! Please DM @2ndchancecafen16 to find out more.

Keep in touch

For all the latest updates about our Hackney Half runners, and our other fundraising, you can follow us on:

Instagram - @2ndchancecafen16

Website - https://www.2ndchancecafe.co.uk/