The All Night Cafe

The All Night Café       

by Paul McCann

Grindlewizers café was a popular spot in the city . It was open all night and people came from everywhere to enjoy the fast foot and good company that Mr Grindlewizer was famous for .

He had stories a plenty that he shared with all his customers as they waited for their order . With limited seating inside the safe most of the people took away their food .

Everyone said Mr Grindlewizer never slept because of an Angelman condition that he was born with but the truth of it was her never slept at nights because of the lifestyle he once had when he took his home cooked soup around all the corners of the city where the homeless slept at night .

For many years he spent all night going from place to place bring soup to the cold and hungry . Most nights they stood in a queue waiting for his van to arrive . There were often fist fights with people trying to bunk the queue to get a hot cup of soup . Usually the bigger boys always got their soup first . Big boys never backed down and nobody ever confronted the big boys who threw harder punches that the rest .

After the big boys were fed Mr Grindlewizer passed out cups of soup to the women and children . Then finally the older and more fragile people were given a cup of hot soup . Mr Grindlewizer always told the fragile ones never to mention to anyone about the hot dogs for those who were fed last .

It was a reward My Grindlewizer gave for those who were hungry but had patience and good manners . Usually the lucky ones who got hot dogs went away to a quiet spot to eat their hot dog . The golden rule was to make sure no one else ever saw those hot dogs apart from those who owned them .

One night one of the big boys saw Mr Grindlewizer handing a hot dog to an old man and made an issue of it . That night Mr Grindlewizer was bashed up and his van was ransacked and burnt from that day on Mr Grindlewizer was unable to continue his work .

When the local council heard about what had happened they asked the business community  of the city to make some donation to replace the van that had been destroyed .

The generosity of the response was amazing as they did more than buy a van for him but they also purchased at no cost a little café in the busiest part of the city for Mr Grindlewizer to continue his trade of feeding the hungry .

In Grindlewizers café he cooked and provided food with a donation only from the customers and if you had no money to give you could always get a feed at Grindlewizers .

The interesting thing is that the majority of his customers were very wealthy people and their donations were quite generous so it  wasn’t that long before Mr Grindlewizer could afford to open another café in the city and aftern ten years he owbed a string of cafes all around the city .

He never changed his policy of donation only for the food that was served .

In a way his kindness and generosity had returned more than he could have imagined . Every year his business was voted as the number one business in the city and he had won over the hearts of the rich and poor alike.

In his old age Mr Grindlewizer had no choice but to retire . He moved into a nursing home and finally was able to get some sleep at night .

Even though Mr Grindlewizer had no family of his own he had a constant stream of visitors everyday until he passed away .

After his death there were many who had stated they saw his ghost still walking around the city at night with cups of soups in his hands .

The End  

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