By Madison Lucchesi
A few doors down from the 150-year-old golden, steaming tea kettle at City Hall Plaza is a cafe on Court Street that began up customers’ wishes in July of last year.
Wishing Cup customers can write down a wish and drop it in the cafe’s wishing cup. Owner Karan Dhamecha narrows the wishes down to a top 3, budgeted for based on that month’s sales. Then, the cafe’s Instagram followers vote for what they think is the best wish.
“I’ll personally go through with my family and we’ll read through all of them every month … we’ve had months we’ve gotten 3-400 wishes,” Dhamecha said.
Dhamecha recently granted a wish to give warm clothing to people in need. “We bought hundreds of gloves, scarves, blankets, and went out and actually gave them to different kids in schools,” he said
The cafe also fulfilled the wish of sponsoring 100 children through Operation Christmas Child in December and gave out 100 meals through Boston Cares for January’s wish.
Some of the wishes customers come up with are for the cafe’s success or as simple as giving a winter coat to someone in need.
“People really put a lot of thought into these wishes, which is really nice to see, because that’s the environment we’ve been trying to build is that you can go get coffee from many places anywhere in the world, but it’s the experience of coming into the wishing cup,” Dhamecha said.
The idea to grant wishes comes from Dhamecha’s family giving back for three generations as a way to show their thanks for their community.
His family’s Indian culture is also featured on the menu. The chai drinks are made with his mother’s recipes and each drink is served with a little sweet treat, like a brownie bite or Biscoff cookie.
Dhamecha’s goal is to grant one wish per day, which he will do by opening more Wishing Cup locations.
“The first location will grant on the first of every month. Location two will grant on the second of every month, so on and so forth until we’re granting 365 wishes,” he said.
Dhamecha hopes to open a second Wishing Cup in the Boston area this summer.
