By Garry Sanossian
Natalie Wilgress turned the key in Common Groundz Café door for the final time on 8 March this year, closing a season of 16 years of making countless cups of coffee and wiping tears from strangers’ faces.
“It was never just about the coffee,” said Natalie, who has managed the café since it opened.
“It was about creating a place where people felt seen, where they could breathe for a moment and know they weren’t alone.”
The Common Groundz Café story began three years before the café opened, when 14 people took up the incarnational call to “…become flesh and blood and move into the neighbourhood.” (Jn 1:14 MSG).
For three years, the group shared communal spaces, ran weekly community meals and held Bible studies, seeking ways to connect with people who were living with mental health challenges, addiction issues and literacy barriers.
Nathan Marshall, one of the founding members who now serves as Church Health and Engagement Leader at churches of Christ reflected on this time by saying, “We were committed as a group of Jesus – followers to work out what it might look like to plant ourselves in Lalor Park and intentionally become neighbours.”
The idea for the café came to Nathan during a rainy night walk. Feeling discouraged by ministry setbacks, he found himself standing before a graffiti-covered wall. “I had a vision of the wall springing to life and becoming a living mural; a safe place for kids, a place of hospitality, a place of growth,” he recalled.
“I turned around from that waking vision and there was a shop for lease, and I sensed the Spirit of God say to me very clearly, ‘You need to be here!’”
With support from a generous benefactor, Common Groundz Café was launched in 2008 (through Crossroads Church, which later amalgamated with Pendle Hill church of Christ, becoming ‘Pathways Community Church’), to create a space of connection in Lalor Park.
“Our icon,” said Nathan, “was Van Gogh’s painting, Café Terrace at Night, that hung on the wall, as we imagined that Christ was the waiter, at the centre of the painting, serving the community, creating the space of hospitality and presence, being the person of transformation. It was our vision, our ethos, our praxis for ministry, and Jesus was calling us to love this community as waiters!”
Van Gogh’s ‘Café Terrace at Night’ on display at Common Groundz Café.
Natalie Wilgress worked alongside Nathan to make Common Groundz more than just a business. “What initially drew me to this opportunity was Nathan approaching me when I was pregnant with my third child,” Natalie recalled. “He said to me, ‘I understand you know how to manage restaurants. Do you want to come and manage a cafe for me?’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Nathan, this baby in my pregnant belly has to come out at some point.’ He said, ‘That’s fine. Bring her with you.’”
Natalie brought her newborn daughter to work, creating a family-oriented atmosphere from day one. “I’d take her to work with me, sit and feed her and talk to customers, put her to sleep, go to work, make coffees, make food. She’d wake up and some customer would pick her up and keep her occupied,” she said.
“It was definitely more than just a business; it was very, very community and family orientated from the very beginning.”
“Common Groundz became a place where ‘everyone knows your name’,” Nathan said.
“It became a place where we knew people’s stories. We knew their needs and we shared our lives.”
As deep connections formed, the desire to meet together as spiritual community crystalised, and ‘Café Church’ began. Becoming a satellite community of Pathways, for many years they met at the community centre across the road on Sunday afternoons. Soon, Nathan found himself conducting weddings and funerals for café customers and praying with people in crisis. “Our heart was to be the mission, and the church actually grew out of the mission,” he said.
“One encounter that will never leave me was the moment a young veteran walked through the doors and we shook hands,” Nathan recalled. “In that moment, the Spirit of God did something words cannot explain. He later became a Christian, and was one of many people who found Christ, encountered community, and got involved in the life of the café and its outreach.”
Colin Scott, an elder from Pathways Community Church, described how for those who walked through its doors, the café offered more than a meal or coffee. “It was a home for people who were often on their own, people with mental health issues, ill health. It became a place of safety, welcome and belonging,” he said.
One afternoon, when a regular customer came through the café doors and burst into tears, Natalie knew Common Groundz had become a safe place for the community. “She was having some struggles at work, being harassed and bullied over a long period of time,” Natalie said.
“When she had nowhere else to turn and she was at her worst, she turned up to the cafe and we were there to listen.”
Another humbling relationship was with café-regular, Sarah. When she didn’t appear for two days, staff became so concerned they went to her home to check on her. Touched by this, Sarah gave them a key.
A while later, Sarah hadn’t been seen again for a longer period of time. The team grew concerned and went to her home only to find she’d had a stroke and been alone for more than 24 hours and were able to get her care.
Through stories like these, Natalie saw the café had become a place where Christ’s presence met people in their darkest hours.
Common Groundz Cafe Team.
Daily specials on display outside Common Groundz Café inviting locals for a warm meal and friendly conversation.
The team at Common Groundz built meaningful relationships with local organisations to help drive broader community development. “We built relationships with local schools and local churches. The community garden at Lalor Park started in our backyard and the art studio across the road started under us as well,” Natalie said. These partnerships extended Common Groundz’s influence throughout the neighbourhood, creating a network of support that reached far beyond the café’s four walls.
Through the final years of the café, financial sustainability remained an ongoing challenge. To address this, the team became increasingly innovative, constructing a coffee and barbecue trailer for events, launching a catering service for local businesses and preparing frozen meals for a hotel chain.
Nathan Marshall ‘on the road’ with the Common Groundz trailer
Team member Adam Lovell, now deceased, brought crucial business perspective during difficult times, which enabled new opportunities for the café such as the mobile coffee and barbecue trailer, the catering services and the frozen meals program, expanding the café’s community presence.
Over time, community members who didn’t even have ties to the café or church found themselves drawn in through events run with the barbecue trailer – which was used at sporting events, local festivals, and even in the middle of the bush during a marathon. “That whole thing created another community of people who came to help, even if they weren’t part of the café or the church,” Colin said.
On closing day on 8 March this year, the community gathered for a celebration of God’s goodness throughout the café’s journey. While this moment marked the end of a chapter for the church, it also offered promise of new opportunities made possible by the relational inroads the café has made into the wider community.
Pathways Church continues its mission through outreach programs, including a women’s refuge, as the congregation embraces fresh vision and energy for the next season of ministry.
