The Down-to-Earth Community Café located in The old Stables in Wantage’s Stirling Close is a tasty place to visit for a hearty but affordable meal; if you are alone, it is also a friendly place to go where you can meet others and make new friends.
Open from Tuesday to Friday, 10am until 3pm, Kate Farrington who heads up the Café ensures that the menu always offers a varied and interesting selection of dishes, all of which are inspired by the surplus food the cafe receives each week from food distributors in Oxfordshire. The fresh produce has not yet reached the supermarket shelves and would otherwise be destined for landfill. However, it is saved and used by charities and social enterprises to help supplement meal provision as well as used in community larders. As Down to Earth-Community-Cafe has signed the Oxford Good Food Charter, they are given access to a network of businesses aligned to a vision for a vibrant, healthy and sustainable food system for Oxford and the county as a whole.
As you gather from their name ‘Down-to-Earth’ Community Café, the Café’s aim is not only to provide food which is affordable, but it is served in an inclusive and friendly community environment. The ‘Down-to-Earth’ Community Café also holds activities, bringing people together in different ways. This has a positive effect on both physical and mental health as well as a positive impact on the environment. The Café tried to build a sense of belonging and pride, as well as helping people to connect with others, make friends and generally improve their well-being.
New events introduced for this year at the Café include a free ‘Mix, Mingle & Make Friends’ monthly community meal, funded by Clarion Housing, held once a month from 11.30am to 2pm. Dates for this are: 20 May, 24 June, 15 July, 19 August, 16 September, 21 October, 18 November and 16 December. As part of the mix at these events, social prescriber Mandie who runs the Chatty Table, Rich the IT Guy is on hand for any IT support, and Anita from OCC Community Connectors is available to share resources, or an informal chat.
A monthly Community Meal and Chop & Chat in collaboration with Sustainable Wantage is held on the last Saturday of each month until October 2025; these sessions provide an opportunity for volunteers to prepare a meal for the community. This is a collective and very sociable cooking session which is open to anyone who would like to meet others and cook a meal together. The cookery session is followed by a Community Meal from 11.30am until 2.30pm. If you would like to participate, simply email Kate at downtoearthwantage@gmail.com. Sustainable Wantage will invite community groups to highlight the work they do. Vale Community Impact and Draughtbusters are amongst those showcasing the important work they do.
Another initiative is the healthy food training sessions, encouraging creativity using every day and affordable ingredients. The training offers the chance to cook together, share recipe ideas, and learn about resourceful and sustainable cooking - most recently with Be Free Young Carers and using the Good Food Oxfordshire Cooking Toolkit which is designed to used existing ingredients to design your own recipe rather than to provide a recipe.
Getting involved in community activities can improve both physical and mental health. The fact that the activities take place in a community hub can improve a sense of belonging and pride, as well as helping people to connect to others and improve well-being.
Whilst generally Oxfordshire is an affluent county, it is an expensive place to live and with the escalating cost of living crisis, the lack of affordable food is being felt month on month by local families. Having access to a community café which helps to address the lack of access to affordable food, also helps to ensure that those who are hungry and lonely have somewhere to go where they will be welcomed and supported.
The cafe is situated in The Old Stables, Stirlings Close, OX12 7AU, in a newly renovated building. It is a short walk from the Waitrose carpark and can be accessed via a footpath opposite the BP Garage (Wallingford Road and Seessen Way).
For further information about the Down to Earth Community Café please visit downtoearthcafe.co.uk or their Facebook page @downtoearthwantage
