Rhizome Café across from Kingsgate Mall on East Broadway will celebrate its last evening Aug. 22.
But new café owner Trinity United Church wants community events and meetings at 317 East Broadway to continue.
“We’re relying on that fact,” said Rev. Bethan Theunissen.
Trinity United started holding a Sunday service in Mount Pleasant in March after leaving Kitsilano. Members of its congregation were Rhizome regulars and the café became the church’s home away from home.
Being involved with a café makes sense for Trinity United.
“We’re not very church-building focused and that was part of what we wanted to be about, was to stop being obsessed about church building and just be where people were and where we wanted to hang out,” Theunissen said.
Trinity United wants to continue the work of Rhizome owners Lisa Moore and Vinetta Lenavat who started the gathering place seven years ago with the goal of creating a community living room and social justice hub that would welcome people of all economic means, gender identities, sexualities and races. They told their clientele in a letter, May 5, that with community collaborators, Rhizome has hosted more than 1,000 community events since 2006.
Trinity United is assuring Rhizome’s clientele it has no intention of turning the space into a church, but the café will host a 30-minute evening service in its front room Tuesday through Friday that will be led by progressive leaders from different spiritual and religious traditions.
Theunissen says she’s reassured a transgender patron of the café that its washrooms will remain gender neutral.Her congregation’s 20 members are aged 26 to over 90, half are gay or lesbian and according to Theunissen share a commitment to social justice.
Trinity United is hiring a manager to run the café “fairly autonomously,” according to Theunissen. She says the café’s fare will be locally grown and pesticide-free. She doesn’t expect the menu to change much and anticipates continuing to offer a version of the pay-what-you-can lentil stew.
Theunissen says the church is mostly using money it received from the repayment of a 60-year-lease to assume the business. The café’s lease agreement runs until December 2016, with an option to renew.
She says the business remained viable in its first five years. Loyal patrons donated money to help keep the café afloat over the past two years. Theunissen expects the business to prosper again with first-time marketing, a “fresh” manager and new customers drawn through the church.
Trinity United is seeking name suggestions for the café. Lenavat and Moore hope to open a Rhizome in the future in Toronto, where they’re moving to be closer to family and focus on other social justice projects.
“We’re really, really, really relieved and happy that someone stepped forward to continue to hold this space as a community space, especially in a dramatically and constantly changing city, the need for community space is ever increasing and becomes ever more urgent,” Moore said.
Rhizome is hosting an informal gathering Aug. 22, 6 to 10 p.m. It will auction off Rhizome memorabilia at 7:30. The café will reopen with an open house, Sept. 5.
