Supporters and an anonymous donor helped finance Wild Thing’s return to its roots
A MUCH-LOVED vegan community café is set to return to its roots in Grangetown after a successful fundraiser.
In November 2020, Wild Thing moved to Cathays permanently after the Grangetown café landlord raised the rent.
A Crowdfunder was set up to finance the return to Grangetown in November 2020. The community raised £20,000 for the café and one anonymous individual stumped up a personal donation of £5,000. As a result, cafe owner Lauren Saunders was able to secure a building on Penarth Road in Grangetown which will open in addition to the Cathays outlet.
After more than a year since the fundraiser began, the lease has been signed. Now Ms Saunders is just waiting for the keys to be handed over.
While having grown as a business in Cathays, Ms Saunders has always planned on returning to Grangetown.
She said: “I am excited to return because of the customer base we built up, Grangetown is such a lovely community and a strong one. It will be nice to see everyone again.”
Ms Saunders said the process has taken longer than she had hoped due to Coronavirus.
She added: “We started that crowdfund just before the winter lockdown and in hindsight we would probably have started it over the summer instead.”
Wild Thing runs on a pay-what-you-can system which aims to fight food poverty, a social issue that is close to Lauren Saunders’ heart.
When asked what her business values were, Ms Saunders said: “Good food accessible for everyone. There is a misconception that vegan food is for elite people, and we just don’t believe in that. Everyone should be able to eat it.”
Customer Georgia Collings, 32, from Compton Street in Grangetown said: “[Wild Thing] brought such forward thinking to this rapidly growing community.
“The community meals and ‘pay what you can’ means that everyone is able to eat healthy, plant-based food without discrimination.”
Another customer, Corey Leigh John from Cardiff, said: “I wasn’t vegan when I first visited the cafe back in 2019 but through tasting their food and seeing how versatile you could be with cooking plants it inspired me to turn vegan, so they’ve definitely changed my life for the better.”
Lauren Saunders said: “We often get asked if we are a charity, we are a non-for-profit. This means we are only able to operate through customer support.”
Customers can choose how much they pay; the system works by those who can afford to paying forward for those who cannot. Wild Thing also does community dinners and workshops.
