A place of holistic nourishment

In March 2023, Thea Muir and her husband Dom launched Bread – a café with a difference in Yeovil, Somerset, which they run together with a dedicated team. It also serves as a flagship store for Thea’s imaginative brand, I Am So Many Things, which offers a range of Christian gifts including mugs, prints and books, designed around biblically-based declarations to inspire true identity.

An adventurous spirit 

Thea describes growing up in a large Christian family – she’s the middle of five children – as “lots of fun, lots of noise”. At 16 she left London for a co-ed boarding school in Wiltshire, followed by a gap year travelling through Asia. She then headed to Edinburgh for university. Before completing her degree, she took a year out to study French in Montreal – there she found a busy cooperative movement that ignited her passion for food and affirmed her love of community.

Back in London after graduating, Thea was reunited with Dom, whom she had dated during her sixth form years: “God sovereignly brought us back together and we moved towards marriage. After their wedding in early 2016, they started as they meant to go on: “we went straight from our honeymoon to leading a mission trip in India…it was awesome”. 

Pioneering together

Over the next few years, they embraced everything God threw at them. “We’ve lived all over…we travelled across America in an RV for three months with our first child when he was six months old, touring and speaking in different churches with I Am So Many Things. We ended up settling back in Dorset, and then Somerset for the last four years – out of which has come Bread.”

For a long time Dom and I had talked about a ‘body, soul, spirit’ café

In setting up their first-ever cafe, Thea describes how: “[I had] zero experience of working in hospitality. And Dom had his first coffee ever at Bread…so we’re very unlikely people to do it.” But this didn’t intimidate them. Of Dom she says: “He’s someone who’ll say ‘Yes’. You know, ‘how hard can it be?’ And then he’ll dive into the unknown. So we have been thrown in the deep end and faced many, many challenges”. Dom runs missions charity ‘NowBelieve’, sharing the gospel with people up and down the UK: “he had been doing street preaching, leading outreaches in the area and had always had this love for Yeovil. It would often be the place he’d get most opposition but there was a brokenness and a tenderness too.”

A prophetic word to start a church grew into a plan to help reinvigorate one of the UK’s declining high streets. “For a long time Dom and I had talked about a ‘body, soul, spirit’ café. So, something that met people’s needs bodily with healthy food, their soul needs for community with exercise or dance groups, toddler groups, sewing groups. And then the Spirit for those who are seeking and wanting more, where there would be an Alpha Course (or the equivalent), or there’d be prayer, worship, church, even the 12-step meetings – a space for recovery.”   

On a mission

While Bread realises this vision, it is also testament to Thea’s own recovery. In Canada, a set of eating disorders had also quietly taken root – characterised by binge-eating, food restriction and over-exercising. Finding herself in the grips of addiction for the first time, she “just couldn’t do the right thing”. Elaborating, she shares: “Binge-eating at the fridge alone, [I] felt so ashamed…And then the next day I’d do it again…thinking, ‘Oh my goodness God must be totally fed up with me.’” She started the 12-step process, and with steadfast support from her mentor she encountered the grace of God: “I was so expecting that rejection of ‘you’re too far gone’ [but instead I] began to rewire my understanding of forgiveness and of salvation – that was totally transformative.” In recovery she began to rebuild her identity in Christ. I Am So Many Things was born out of this; with its charming illustrations and powerful declarations it expresses how Thea herself overcame her issues of identity, inviting others into the freedom she now enjoys.

The two enterprises fit together perfectly; “it was a real marrying of the two brands really, and what Dom and I can both give.” This is felt both in Bread’s ethos and in the practical design of the space. Bright colours from I Am So Many Things provide the palette, its drawings and murals, the decoration, and hot drinks are served up in its mugs. A 12-foot-long wooden table invites people to stay awhile, an upstairs prayer room offers space to connect with God, and a play area for children provides respite for busy mums. On any given day between 30 and 60 customers come through the doors. 

We are a church on the high street first and foremost

For Thea it’s all about the “small decisions”; for example, Bread’s tasty sourdough toasties and other mouth-watering goodies are made from the best locally sourced ingredients. You can even order from a ‘prayer menu’ as you’re greeted warmly by staff. “Everyone says we have the best coffee in Yeovil”, Thea says, encouraged. It certainly isn’t your average café: “We hold mission right at the front. Dom’s always been pretty clear on that…We don’t just want to be a Christian coffee shop and let the gospel go undercover for the sake of keeping people happy. We are a church on the high street first and foremost…and for those who are searching at least they know where to come.” Once a day they take the mic and share the gospel from the shop floor, a reminder of why they’re there: “that’s a decision that will lose people but is one that keeps mission at the forefront, not just serving great coffee”.

Paying overheads and staff has been a “faith-walk”, as has getting to grips with detailed operational requirements. “In the midst of it we’ve had three little ones at home, and we’ve just had our fourth so have been juggling home life with the demands of setting up a café.” The start-up phase was funded by generous donations, and they are working towards becoming financially self-sufficient. She sees Bread at “an interesting intersection of business, ministry and church, which brings with it specific challenges”. Leading the team has called heavily on their spiritual and emotional maturity, as she acknowledges that “there’s so much power in relationships. So definitely they have not gone uncontested.”

Reflecting on the impact

Since opening in March 2023, the number of testimonies is continuing to grow. Customers with severe foot problems, back trouble or with lives affected by diabetes, Asperger’s, anxiety and alcohol addiction have received physical and spiritual healing as staff pray for them. Prophetic words offer comfort and many people are experiencing God’s love for the first time. One young man, addicted to crack cocaine, had recently found himself homeless. Growing up in the area he had been through 58 foster homes. A foster carer had given him an I Am So Many Things Bible – realising the connection he went into Bread and gave his life to God. As a church they were also able to give him food and shelter, and get him into a Christian rehab. Thea is ever-mindful that: “It’s the Lord that does it…one person sows, another one waters – so it’s just trying to be the cog in the wheel where the Lord places us.”

Thea says she could never have foreseen where she is now. “Oh my goodness, I couldn’t have imagined. Four children, a café, a business, living in Somerset – it has been a magical mystery tour. And to see how far the Lord had brought me with this food stuff: ‘What was intended for bad being used for good’ [Genesis 50]. I wouldn’t change it – I’m so grateful for what the Lord has done.” Healed and transformed, God is using Thea’s love for food to transform lives, which makes Bread not just a café but a profoundly nourishing place.

To learn more about Bread go to bread.space or visit in person at 48 Middle Street, Yeovil. Interested in I Am So Many Things? For 15% discount head to iamsomanythings.com and use WOMANALIVE15 at checkout. Valid until the end of March 2024.

Words by Alex Noel