A new café has opened beside Blackfriars on St Giles, offering coffee, pastries, breakfast, brunch and lunch seven days a week, according to Oxford Mail. Its name? Good Habit.
And while the friars won't actually be steaming the milk themselves -- the café is independently run -- there is considerably more behind the project than keeping Oxford supplied with flat whites.
Good Habit has been created by Blackfriars, the Dominican academic community within the University of Oxford, to solve a rather practical problem. The Hall needed somewhere for students and academics to eat together, while a commercial space in its adjoining building was sitting unused. Put the two together, add a coffee bar and fully equipped kitchen, and a very good habit was born.
Coffee, conversation, and community
During the day, Good Habit is open to anyone wandering along St Giles in search of coffee or lunch. At other times, the flexible space will host student meals and events, giving the Blackfriars community something it has previously lacked: a place to gather regularly around a table.
And for an order with an 800-year tradition of preaching, teaching, and exchanging ideas, creating a space built around conversation couldn't be more apt.
However, it also gives Blackfriars something else: a window onto the street, quite literally. The main priory can be easy to pass without knowing much about the life taking place inside. Good Habit, by contrast, has large picture windows opening onto one of Oxford's busiest streets.
Richard Brown, development director at Blackfriars Hall, hopes people will spot friars enjoying a coffee there and that curiosity might lead naturally to conversations about who they are and what they do. No elaborate introduction required. Sometimes a coffee will do.
A good habit that does some good
The café also has a practical benefit for Blackfriars. It operates on a profit-sharing basis, so if Good Habit thrives, some of that success will help support the Hall's educational work at Oxford.
But perhaps the loveliest part of the project is its simplicity. Opening a café isn't an obvious form of evangelization, and the person popping in for a cappuccino may have no particular interest in meeting a Dominican friar.
Then again, Christianity has always placed considerable importance on hospitality, shared meals and making room for conversation. So if a cup of coffee brings a few more people through the door -- and perhaps occasionally into a conversation they weren't expecting -- Good Habit may turn out to be a very good habit indeed.