Tommy’s Coffee is a takeaway coffee cart serving as a hospitable initiative to engage with locals, tourists, and students, providing high-quality, ethically sourced coffee and fostering meaningful conversations. Our desire is to see that every coffee comes with an invitation to church.

One of the markers of our mission here at St Thomas’ since we relaunched in 2019 has been opening our doors and blessing the people of Newcastle with food and drinks. From doing this over the past five years, we’ve invited well over 10,000 people to church. We’ve seen people come into our building and encounter Jesus. Many have gone on to be baptised, confirmed, and remain part of our church community - all because we were initially able to bless them with great hospitality.

As a team we’ve been thinking and praying about how we might expand on this fruitful ministry, and we’ve been led to launch Tommy’s Coffee.

Our main objectives are to share Jesus, build relationships, be invitational, and generate revenue. We believe Tommy’s Coffee presents an innovative opportunity for St Thomas’, expanding our connections with the people of Newcastle, helping to build community by offering coffee served with love, and providing an income stream for the ongoing mission and ministry of the church. By combining a high-quality coffee enterprise with faith-filled conversation being the driver, we’re confident many people as a result will choose to follow Jesus.

Derived from the name St Thomas’, the Tommy’s brand began with Tommy’s Pizza - the name of our pizza outreach. Building on the success of Tommy’s Pizza, it seemed a natural progression to name our new hospitable initiative Tommy’s Coffee.

The coffee cart will be located in the entrance of St Thomas’ - between the exterior glass doors and the internal red wooden doors.

We will offer ethically-sourced, sustainably-produced takeaway coffee and other hot and cold drinks, as well as light bites and snacks. There will also be a small selection of items for sale - bags of coffee, coffee accessories, merchandise etc. The most important thing we will offer to every customer is an invitation to church.

Whilst we remain flexible in our approach to opening hours, the current plan is to be open 7:30am-3pm, Monday to Friday.

The current Tommy’s Coffee management team is:

Lee Kirkby Associate Minister
Chris Elder Operations Director
Joel Barwick Youth Minister
Luke Porter Creative Director

We’re hopeful to launch Tommy’s Coffee in Spring 2025.

Tommy’s Coffee will allow our front doors to be open much more frequently, offering increased opportunities to invite people in. Services, groups and events will continue to run as normal within the church as Tommy’s Coffee operates in the entranceway.

Tommy’s Coffee will serve as a very practical way of inviting people to follow Jesus, as every coffee comes with an invitation to church.

So often community is developed over food and drink. Through faith-filled, intentional conversations with regulars and one-off guests, we’ll build community with those in our city, and invite them to join the St Thomas’ family.

And we can’t wait to love Newcastle by meeting the needs of those around us with fantastic coffee, great service, and an opportunity to meet the God who is himself love.

The profits generated by Tommy’s Coffee will go directly to the mission and ministry of St Thomas’. This will help with planting new churches, developing more outreach and support work, resourcing our diocese, growing the ministry of the church, and ultimately seeing more people come to know Jesus.