50,000 Bowls of Love: Ottawa oat cafe raises funds for breakfast club

With two locations nestled in Ottawa South and Centretown, Oat Couture is the only oatmeal cafe in the world, but in the nation’s capital, it’s known for something a little different.

Each day since April 2020, the cafe has packaged some of its oatmeal in takeout containers and paper bags, leaving them on a cart outside the store with a sign saying “take one if you or a friend is in need.”

“Everybody was hurting. It was lots of layoffs. And we wanted to do our bit,” Brian Montgomery, founder and owner of Oat Couture, told CityNews of how the breakfast club started at the beginning of the pandemic. “And we wanted to just do as much as we could as a little cafe that only been around for a couple of years.”

On that fateful April day, Montgomery said they had some oats leftover, so they decided to package up a few bowls and leave them outside for those in need.

He said he didn’t know it would become an everyday thing, but when all the bowls were gone, he knew they had to do it again the next day.

“We haven’t missed a day,” Montgomery said. “We do about 27 bags a day or so in total.”

Sometime over Valentine’s Day weekend, someone picked up the 50,000th bowl.

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Oat Couture has never asked someone to prove they are in need, instead the breakfast club runs on an honour system.

Montgomery said they haven’t received any complaints, but they have received lots of thanks.

“There’s a homeless couple that just got unhoused. It would make their day when they happened to be walking by when the bags were there,” he said. “We had people who we helped get back on their feet, and when they were back on their feet, they thanked us with cards.”

Montgomery said his staff are just as into it.

“They love doing it,” he said. “It’s their own way of giving back. They might not pay for it, but they do pay for it with their time.”

“I think that if you can contribute in your own little bit to society, to volunteer in some way or help people in some way, I just think that it’s not just good for society, it’s also good for yourself.”

Montgomery wants to keep the breakfast club going, but as a business there is a bottom line cost associated.

“It’s not cheap,” he said. “It’s labour, it’s packaging, and it’s the actual food.”

But that food is something people look forward to. A hot bowl of oatmeal is very different from the kinds of food people may get at a food bank, Montgomery said. It is very important to him that he feeds people in need the same quality of food he would feed his paying customers.

“It’s a wholesome meal. And oatmeal, the great thing about oatmeal in the morning is it sort of sticks to the ribs. It keeps you going for a while and it’s good for your heart,” he said. “There’s other things that people do and I applaud them, but our little bit is that we’re providing a healthy meal.”

Oat Couture has now started a GoFundMe to ask the community to support its breakfast club initiative. As of Feb. 16, the Bowls of Love campaign has raised over $6,000. Montgomery is hoping to reach $50,000.

“That’s the basic cost for a year, believe it or not,” he said.

He added that every bit helps.

“It’s a tough business, but we are very appreciative of Ottawa supporting our concept,” he said. “After seven years, we still appreciate people coming to our cafes and giving us a chance to become a regular part of their lives. And so it’s hard for us to stop doing something that has become a large part of other people’s lives.”