Café Alfresco will be readjusting coffee prices from tomorrow to reflect current market realities.

As of 1 February 2010, a cup of Lavazza coffee will be available for Rf20, the price at which Lavazza is now sold at most cafes and restaurants.

However, we are pleased to announce that Café Alfresco Loyalty Club Card-holding members will continue to enjoy a cup of Lavazza coffee at a 5 percent discount. Application forms for Alfresco Club Card are available from the café counter.

We are pleased that Café Alfresco, which first popularized Lavazza coffee in Maldives and set off the ‘coffee culture’ phenomenon here, continues to uphold the quality of Lavazza coffee with our state-of-the-art brewing and filtration apparatus.

We thank all our beloved customers for their understanding.

- The Management and Staff of Café Alfresco -

A massive, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti near the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, January 12th.  The damage to buildings is extensive and the number of injured or dead is estimated to be over 100,000.

Your gift will help rush emergency supplies to survivors of this catastrophe. Your gift now will help distribute life-saving relief supplies including food, clean water, blankets, medical supplies and tents to children and families devastated by the earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti.

Please visit Hope For Haiti Now: A Global Benefit For Earthquake Relief to contribute.

Cafe’ Alfresco will be screening HOPE FOR HAITI NOW TELETHON on Friday, 29 January 2009 at 10pm.

Be there!

Happy New Year!

Cafe’ Alfresco Loyalty Club Card holders please enjoy a 10 percent discount on the 1st day of 2010 at Cafe’ Alfresco.

An international football match, like that of at SAFF championship, for Maldives will be one of those rare occasions where all Maldivians alike unite to demonstrate the patriotic spirit.

Still rarer are those occasions when calamity occurs; the tsunami of December 2004 was one of those unusual times when Maldivians showed extraordinary solidarity.

Fortunately for Mohamed Haleem, popular among friends as simply Kesto, the time served an unusual but important opportunity – of a task that was at hand for the most unlikely group of friends: the “Alfresco Family.”

Kesto, now in his 40s, is also fondly called “King of Coffee” among his closest friends for a reason: he is the pioneering socialite who may have single-handedly helped launch “coffee culture” in Maldives:

At a time when Café Alfresco had just opened at STO Trade Center, Kesto always encouraged socializing and gradually created a network of well-connected Maldivians, and even promoted this Alfresco Coffee Family through his Facebook page.

Having a passion for culture, history and photography among his various interests, Kesto keeps a close affinity to the Alfresco Coffee Family through Facebook promotions and has a separate photo album where he regularly uploads photos of Alfresco Coffee Family.

When the tsunami came, Kesto was able to mobilize a lot of people to take over different tasks to help tsunami struck families across the Maldives.

“I think that is what is the single most beneficial thing of having a close contact group — being able to mobilize a very large group of friends to take action where it is needed,” he recently reminisced.

Kesto is popular for his invaluable contributions to social and humanitarian causes, not to mention sports.

In 1993 he extended his personal gym and opened Muscle Load; today there are 6,000 registered members and around 100 regular members.

Kesto is also Founder of Bodybuilding Federation of Maldives (BBFM) and through Muscle Load, which became BBFM’s official gym, many people trained and gained fame in local and international bodybuilding events.

Kesto also facilitated training of the elite Star Force policemen at Muscle Load. The gym continues to provide bouncers and other security services to important social events in the country.

Kesto, along with other associates, have also helped to set up gyms in Maafushi prison, the drug rehabilitation center in Himmafushi and islands in 6 other atolls.

Kesto, who sees himself more as a “Global Citizen” now lives mostly in Malaysia but is currently in Maldives to take care of certain matters.

“I might be here for a long while,” he said.

More of Kesto’s Facebook albums on Alfresco community:

Alfresco Eid Celebration

Alfresco celebrates victory day 2009

…On my way to have afternoon tea with Nasheed at his office, I wander through the candy-coloured capital of Malé, all vibrant lemons and pinks, and stop at the stock exchange (it has four listed companies) before arriving outside the imposing presidential building, painted peppermint and white. Two tour groups are gazing up – one Chinese, the other Indian. The Chinese group moves off quickly and I am left listening to snatches of Hindi and English from the Indian tour guide. He declares the Maldives “Muslim but broadminded” and says in Hindi that President Nasheed has a “very good relationship” with India.

As I go up to the first floor to meet Nasheed, I think that if anyone can bridge the large divide on climate change between developing countries like China and India and the developed world, it is the articulate Maldivian.

Nasheed is accompanied by his British press secretary and a couple of aides. He has, as one writer observed, the build of “a jockey” and looks even younger than his 42 years. The president leads me to a balcony where an enormous Maldivian tea is laid out with half a dozen place settings. As I fret that all his aides are about to join us, he reassures me by wondering aloud why the table is so laden. I pour him a cup of Lipton’s tea, served black as is customary in the Maldives… Full story from Financial Times

“May your plate of life be always full of juicy kebabs and tikkas, topped with the chutney of happiness.” EID MUBARAK!