Starting a Repair Cafe

Repair Cafés are free meeting places and they’re all about repairing things (together). In the place where a Repair Café is located, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need to make – on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, etc. You’ll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields. And it’s free!

Visitors bring their broken items from home. Together with the specialists they start making their repairs in the Repair Café. It’s an ongoing learning process. If you have nothing to repair, you can enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. Or you can lend a hand with someone else’s repair job. You can also get inspired at the reading table – by leafing through books on repairs and DIY.

Repair Cafes help to reduce waste by keeping stuff out landfills. They are community-oriented, volunteer-based, and low-cost events. The Repair Café was initiated by Martine Postma. Since 2007, she has been striving for sustainability at a local level in many ways. Martine organized the very first Repair Café in Amsterdam in 2009. 

There are over 2,500 Repair Cafés worldwide. Visit one in your area or start one yourself! See also the house rules used at the Repair Cafes.

AIB community Pound Ridge, New York, sets up its Repair Cafe in the school gym on a Saturday. One is held in the spring, one in the fall. It is publicized with roadsigns, articles in the newspaper, and through social media. The first one was a quiet event, but word spread and people now save items to bring to the cafe for repairs. Volunteers bring their favorite tools and other people bring things for repairs.  Lamps, jewelry, computers, toys, bikes…you never know what will come in the door.

For lots of information (a start-up manual, posters, flyers, press releases, YouTube videos, and more) about this international movement, visit RepairCafe.org.