I've Been Here All Along!

People have been asking about where the Lunch Tramp has disappeared to lately. Fear not, I have not left town. (Well, sometimes I leave town - I mean, a girl's gotta travel, you know?) 

The awesome business card I made when I "lunch trampin'"

Most of you know that I'm making lunch now more than I'm dining out with friends - but that doesn't mean I'm giving up my moniker. In fact, I'd say the opposite is more often true. Now, instead of a few lunch dates a week, I'm hanging out with all the cool kids every day!

We social creatures like to, you know, be social. We like to talk about things: local politics, new businesses opening nearby, what ridiculous drama we saw on the weekly installments of Come Dine With Me Canada - you know, important stuff. (I'm not sure if you can tell but I was using my sarcasm font there.)

One of the advantages of having a cafe is the conversation. It is a really rare day when I'm not fascinated by the things people talk about here. There are those who suggest we should install a hidden camera and then have some sort of closed circuit feed to entertain the masses but I suspect that privacy violations aside, we might not be as entertaining to the masses as some would have us think. (In related news, if the masses were tens of people, MAYBE we would be a hit - but I still doubt it.)

In any case, I thought today I would talk about how the Lunch Tramp came to be in the first place - and why I'm such an advocate for social media . I joke that social media is part of my job as a business owner - but I'm only half joking. MANY of my devoted peeps come to the cafe because they found out about me via social media. More often than not, people who are newcomers tell me about seeing a funny coffee pic on a friend's Facebook page or they liked my pics on Instagram. But (I know you're not supposed to start a sentence with but - but I felt like I could be colloquial) the even cooler part about social media for me is the actual friendships I now have as a direct result of... Twitter!

The Lunch Tramp came about because I tweeted one fine day in 2011, I had three lunch dates. To be fair, my social media maven friend invited me and two other people to lunch but one of them ditched us. Several people commented that they felt excluded and then joined in - and the Lunch Tramp (and Cornwall Tweetup) was born. I designed business cards, got teased a bit on Facebook and went on with my life. The next week there were over a dozen people at our lunch table - and several of them were people I had never met before. (Truth be told, I wasn't even married to Twitter at the time. When one person commented on my business card pic about a weekly tweet-up, I didn't even know what that was!)

Now, a couple of years later, my family and I have gone on vacation with friends we didn't know before tweet-ups and the Lunch Tramp. We have entertained at our home and been invited to spend time with others. Social media is what you make it - and I'm thrilled to say we have made it a great place to hang out. If you're on the fence, I say, give it a try. Pick one form of social media and try it on for size. You can learn stuff about a hobby, interact with fellow foodies, find business contacts and more. Or... follow a celebrity. It isn't my bag but I'm not here to judge. I am here to say I have friends today I didn't even know a couple of years ago. I have laughed until I've cried (today in fact) with someone I may never have come across otherwise. Social media is not the tool of the devil. (Except for the games. Those are terrible.)