Life in the City - Known By Name

I am slowly getting to know my downtown neighbourhood and the patterns of those who live and work here.

As I habitually look at people’s faces, rather than the pavement or shop windows, I’ve noticed that I’m beginning to recognise my fellow inhabitants. There is that young Asian woman with the bright orange handbag. There’s the old guy who has probably spent the night in a bus shelter. There’s the bank employee who goes to the same coffee shop I usually frequent.

Auckland has some 1.5 million people. Downtown, as you might expect, is the most densely populated part of the city. Some 5,000 people live within 300 metres of the church. What I didn’t expect was to begin to recognise people, like you would at a village store.

There is some impressive community-builders downtown. Like the McGregor Brothers café in Wellesley Street. James and Tom offer a good product, and serve it with grace and finesse. Yet other cafés and restaurants do the same. The difference is they make the effort to learn their customers' names. When you consider that from 7 a.m. on there is a queue of coffee junkies lining up for a pre-work fix, learning names is no small feat.

Similarly there is the Tiki Boy café on Ponsonby Road. As I walk in the door there is always a holler: “Hiya Father Glynn”. Preston tells me that if he has served a person three coffees and doesn’t know their name he is failing in his job. Jene and Preston have also created their own café ethos. It’s a fun, joking, clowning atmosphere. While the McGregors offer fine china, the Tiki Boys offer stunts on bikes.

What I’ve noticed is that I will walk past, and drive past, other cafés that actually have better coffee and food in order to go somewhere where I’m known by name. And its not just where I am known but its where others names are announced too, and relationship encouraged. Its what in times past a local village pub might have offered. Or a church.