How Seattle cafe’s ‘radical hospitality’ serves recovery community

Jane steps into Recovery Café, flashes a smile at cafe manager Terri D Rhodes, and heads to the coffee counter where another friend, Kelly, the barista of the day, is whipping up foamy lattes.

With tall windows and sunny yellow walls mounted with “Love” and “forgiveness” in big cursive papier-mache letters, the cafe exudes a homey warmth. People gather at a dozen tables, talking, sipping coffee, typing on laptops, or doing a puzzle. A self-serve buffet offers hot, hearty meals. Housed in a 1920s-era brick neckwear factory in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighborhood, it has the feel of a local diner back East, or a rural Midwestern coffee shop where no one’s a stranger.

But this is no ordinary cafe. It is an unconditionally welcoming community, where every member is both recovering

“Replacement for the family I don’t have” “Doing the next right thing”