We have recently completed 5 years of Mercearia Bio Cafe, which means that the Cafe opened 5 years ago, or in other words the Café already has a 5 year history, if we do not take into account the time in which it was still a project so addin it all we have around 12 to 13 years.

12 is the number of years that have gone by since we started our organic guys project , and this is how many people refer to us.

And what have we done to celebrate this event? A sunset cocktail. Where? By the terrace at the Café. The format of the event was Ana's idea, but of course we all strive to make the best of the event, like everything we try to do. Nuno dealt with the orders and suppliers, Rui and Fernanda invited our Coffee Shoppers and organized the services at the Café, I helped to prepare the Cocktail, Helena helped in the design and the communication, our "suppliers", the Joanas and Ana América, provided us with sweet and salted food items, and even my children, Pedro and Clare helped out. My son, proud to say that, prepared the cheese platters with fruit and nuts, with my supervision and advice.

But I did not intended to speak about this all. My idea was simply to share my joy with the gifts we received from our customers. Among them a riddle, a card and a flower.

Not because of the gifts themselves, but rather for the gesture of generosity that represented these offers to me and I want to believe that for the whole Team. It makes us think that what we started back there made sense and still does and not just as a business and way of life, which also is.

The relationships of friendship, gratitude and appreciation are beyond the simple transactions, selling and buying. This gestures from our generous Customers mean they care about us and they appreciate what we do. And this is worth more than the profits or losses that our Accountant, Varela, also a person we enjoy, announces us every year.

We are often proud to say that that we have Customers who accompany us right from the beginning, indifferent to other businesses, large and small, with lower or higher prices, different or equal products, more or less resources.

Customers who started by shopping at the Mercearia Bio online store, who then started going to our warehouse, long before we opened the Cafe, and then passed on their shopping to the Cafe. Customers who started with the Café, then switched to buying online, for home delivery or pick up at the Café. Customers who come on vacation to the Algarve, already with the order made for delivery to their holiday homes or second homes. Customers of Trás-os-Montes, Alentejo, Lisbon, Madeira, Azores, in fact everywhere from all Portugal, who come to the Algarve visit us, make sure they meet us in person.

Recently, with the remodeling of our online store at the end of the year 2018, we have written down our values. Not that we have changed them, but we have written them of. One of these values is

FRIENDSHIP

May our Customers, all of us, Team, and all the People with whom we relate can establish bonds of true friendship.

And if this has been achieved, then we have a business!