There’s a new dance we’ve spotted being performed by lots of new arrivals at Dock Cafe.  I’m calling it the Entrance Ramp Wobble Boogie of Confusion and Consternation.  Or – more snappily – the Dock Hokey Cokey.

It goes like this:  People enter in through the main door.  They stop on the entrance ramp taking in the crazy surroundings, the shabby chic furniture, the maps and pictures, the bustling busy mix of people sprawled on the safe and clustering around the tables.   They put their left leg in.  They put their left leg out.  They wobble and pause and wonder what on Earth it’s all about.  And then sometimes they take their whole selves out – because they were looking for somewhere with food and a menu and waiters and a till and all of those kinds of mad things.

Now sometimes a cheery volunteer can rush over in time to explain that there’s no till –  but there is an Honesty Box;  there’s no waiter – but there is a friendly volunteer;  there’s no menu – but there is a whole host of delicious food in the takeaway deli next door (and it really is delicious – have you tried Angie’s chicken and ham pie?  Amazing!) if our cakes, scones, buns and soup aren’t what you were looking for.

But quite a lot of people do the Entrance Ramp Wobble Boogie of Confusion and Consternation before departing for our lives forever and we want this to stop!  We protest and we are against this dance! Down with this sort of thing! (careful now)

And so over the last few weeks we’ve been working hard to find better ways to explain Dock Cafe to its brand-new customers.  I have built a great Thing at the entrance (a proscenium arch? a pagoda? a cattle gate? a boarding ramp? it’s been called all these and more) with lots of signs to point you in the right direction:

And most of all we have revised our main blackboard  at the Honesty Box (so – goodbye to our lovely list of all the scones and cakes and bakes that we eat each month – we did love ya!) – and now it (hopefully) answers all the questions you are posing with your expressive dance.

So – once and for all – Ye boogiers, cease your boogieing! Put both feet in and do the hokey cokey.  This is what the Dock is all about!

(PS we’re working on an even-bigger version of this blackboard and also some postcard-sized takeaway versions – and trying to translate it into as many languages as possible – if anyone can help us with the translations please get in touch!)