History of love at The Archive Cafe

Rochelle Motha and husband Yasi run a Holmfirth cafe with kindness at its core. Rochelle tells Laura Reid how the couple’s roots – and Mother Teresa – played key roles.

WHEN you grow up literally in the lap of Mother Teresa, you become instilled with her principles. Helping the poor, and others in need, is part of everyday life – and a part that Rochelle Motha still holds dear more than 40 years on and over 5,000 miles away from her childhood home.

Since the start of the year, 50-year-old Rochelle and her husband Yasi Herath, 51, have been running The Archive Cafe in Holmfirth. It is a venture born from a passion for fusion food from all corners of the world, but more than that, they say, it is about creating experiences that leave people smiling.

The couple, originally from Sri Lanka, are working together to develop their vision for a community hub, a welcoming space where people can connect and share stories. At its heart are values by which Mother Teresa lived – those of kindness and compassion.

"It’s all about looking after people," explains Rochelle, who takes the lead with cooking. "If you’ve been to Sri Lanka, you’ll know that someone could have £5 in their hand and they’d give all of it to you.

"So many customers when they hear that we’re from Sri Lanka, their faces light up and they go, ‘I’ve been and it’s the most amazing place because the people are so generous and so loving’ and it’s the same with food too...food is our love language."

In their culture, food is far more than just nourishment, she explains. It is a way to express love, kindness and connection and to bring people together. The couple have installed a paying forward board at the cafe, where people can pay for others to eat and drink, something Rochelle says she and Yasi have practised their whole lives.

"We have people coming in with very little money and we feed them through the board or we give them free food, free coffees and teas. They come with their stories to us and we have created something really touching and beautiful. I don't think there's any day that we leave with a dry eye.

"This is not just a workplace, not just a cafe, but a place with a narrative of love, understanding people and kindness. The world is short of it right now."

The ethos behind the cafe can be traced back to the couple’s roots, particularly Rochelle’s upbringing. Her grandfather was a confectionary pioneer, whilst her late father, who was of Indian heritage, launched a business working with the army and navy on spare parts and navigational equipment.

"My dad was an amazing businessman. People still talk about him. He worked closely with Mother Teresa and we grew up with her in and out of our house. I used to sit on her lap and we used to play with her.

"He did a lot of work for the poor. When dad died, mum used to get letters saying that he had accounts at various funeral parlours – he had paid forward for funerals and things like that. That’s was the kind of person he was. So I grew up in an environment where there was so much love and generosity and my mum is still doing a lot of that work and so is my brother back in Sri Lanka."

Rochelle left the country at 20 to undertake a university degree in fine arts in India, having already completed a diploma in fashion. She met Yasi on a flight – he was cabin crew and she a passenger and they later married and moved to England.

Once here, Yasi did a masters degree at London South Bank University in digital technologies, and he then went on to work for several agencies including Kova insurance firm and the National Grid.

Rochelle, inset, has been focused on raising their two daughters, now 18 and 13, and did a creative studies degree at Central Saint Martins in 2017. Since then, she has run Huddersfield-based RocEthical, an organisation focused on the production of environmentally friendly, ethical clothing made from reclaimed fabrics.

"I’ve always taught my kid even kids to be content with what they have and we are always trying to be ethical and sustainable in whatever way we operate," she says.

"When I finished my masters I wrote to multinational companies in Sri Lanka. Fashion is the second biggest polluter in the world after oil and I thought I need to do something about it. My country is manufacturing tons of clothing a year so I wrote to these multinational companies and said why don't you pledge your waste to me (instead of it going to landfill)?

"We take all of this waste, and redesign it, upcycle these garments to create clothes with existing fabric. And all of these are made by widows and single women. We pay them completely fair wages and then a percentage goes into providing for their children’s education... We want to break the chain of poverty and upskill these people." Soon, Rochelle hopes to link her two ventures, by having tote bags made by the women available to buy in the cafe.

Yasi, meanwhile, has now left his corporate job to focus on the business and learnt to bake in just a month before the cafe opened its doors in what was formerly a bank in the town. "He'd never baked a day in his life before then," Rochelle recalls. "Now people come just to eat his cakes with a cup of coffee."

The couple, who have lived in Yorkshire for the last five years, say each of the cafe's plates of food has at least two countries and cuisines represented. They are also in the process of launching small plate and cocktail evenings and hope to see the cafe to expand to become a small chain.

"I love it when people eat our food and go ‘I’m trying to figure where this is from’," Rochelle says. "I love it being simple yet complex behind the scenes. It's not Michelin star but my aim is be on Saturday Kitchen."

Visit www.archivecafe.co.uk