Barring holidays, long weekends, and the latest episode of your favorite series, it’s usually hard to find a reason to be happy about Mondays. This day marks the beginning of the work week and the school week. It marks the end of our rest and relaxation from the weekend and having to come back to reality and responsibilities.
Luckily for us, a café just opened in Kapitolyo dedicated to all the reasons why everybody should give loving Mondays a chance. May I present, the Love Monday Café.
Love Monday Café is the brainchild of Daene Luna. Luna was just another member of the workforce dreading Mondays, dissatisfied with her lackluster attitude towards every beginning of her week. In an attempt to reignite her passion for life after a couple of years in the corporate world, she made a personal pact with herself in 2015 to find all the different reasons to enthusiastically get up on a Monday. Her personal resolution evolved into a movement on Instagram with the #lovemondays, which in turn led to her café today.
Through her new café, she shares why we should all change our attitudes towards Mondays.
Love Mondays for brunch
When she was still working in corporate, Luna traveled a lot. She stayed in countries like Vietnam, Seoul, and Melbourne. Melbourne and Singapore had a nice brunch scene, and there was something about the ambivalent midday meal that she found comforting. And so, Love Monday Café became a brunch place that collated every cuisine that comforted and inspired her Mondays when she was abroad.
They have Filipino favorites like the garlic longganisa made by a couple from Tuguegarao. They also use the longganisa to make the patty for their Breakfast Burger. They have chinese kikiam, also served with rice, made by a family business that produces meats.
Challenged by two of her friends who did not like Spam, Luna came up with Spamghetti, a pasta dish with tomato-based sauce topped with the canned luncheon meat. It converted her friends to Spam lovers.
Love Monday Café also serves classic comfort food like mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and a good bowl of spicy ramyun (Korean ramen) for rainy days.
Love Mondays because of local art
Another thing that gets Luna through Mondays is watching out for updates on her favorite local artists in Instagram. She figured that the café needed a little color anyway, so she displayed their posters and prints in her café.
Sometimes, she also lends her space for workshops and seminars for artists and writers. In the future, she might invite artists to sell their merchandise and works at her café.
Love Mondays because of horticulture
Luna is a big lover of plants. They give her a happy purpose every Monday morning when she has to get up and make sure all of them are watered and blooming.
She made sure to showcase that love through her café. There’s a mural outside of her café made by two artists from Batangas featuring leaves in different shapes and colors. Inside the café, pots of indoor plants and cute little succulents decorate corners, tables, and shelves. They’re all real too. She only has one fake plant in the café, and she invites all of you to come and chance a guess to which potted darling it is.
This horticulture lady shared that she’s planning to sell indoor plants, cacti, and succulents right outside the café sometime soon.
Love Mondays for ombre milk tea
Ombre drinks are a big thing in Thailand, another country Luna stayed in. She loved the colorful drinks there and made a point to always get them on her way to work.
The ombre milk tea served in Love Monday are made of organic teas, the colors caused by the natural dye of the loose tea leaves. For the Vanilla Blue Chai, they use Blue Pea Flower found only in Southeast Asia. The pink Strawberry Hibiscus is pretty self-explanatory. These drinks have no caffeine because of being steeped from organic tea leaves and have a very simple taste. The sweetness isn’t overpowering either.
Love Mondays because of comforting house-blend coffee
While she was staying Vietnam, she was sucked in by their café culture which encouraged hour-long conversations with friends while sitting outside, enjoying a late cup of morning coffee. She wanted to bring that culture to the Philippines through Love Monday café. They have house blend coffee that’ll make people want to come back and comfort them during a bad day.
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Writer: ANTHEA REYES
PHOTOGRAPHY CHESLEIGH NOFIEL AND MICKEY PAPERA
