A RESTAURANT chain that is famous for lunch and dinners is helping children have a hearty breakfast.
Côte, which has a branch on Broad Street in Wokingham and also in The Oracle in Reading, eschewed the traditional Christmas cracker with its festive meals, instead sending what it would have spent to the charity Magic Breakfast.
This sees schools provided with nutritious breakfasts to pupils, with an aim to ending hunger as a barrier to education for youngsters living with food insecurity.
And there was a second reason behind the £40,000 donation: to reduce the firm’s paper wastage.
Côte’s Christmas offering was a seasonal, French-inspired three-course Christmas menu, just without the additional decoration of crackers.
It has already donated more than £200,000 Magic Breakfast and is planning to continue the partnership this year, with a series of special events that will see staff meet the charities they support.
Côte spokesperson Jane Holbrook said: “Magic Breakfast do amazing work that positively impacts the lives of thousands of children.
“We are big fans of what they do and over the last couple of years our team and owners have donated over £200,000.
“We decided we should do more, so we’ve donated the money that would have been spent on Christmas crackers to them, so they can buy thousands of breakfasts for children who really need it.”
Côte also donated 21,000 turkey and vegetable portions to The Felix Project in London and a further 2,300 portions to six Crisis sites in London, Birmingham, Merseyside, Newcastle, South Wales and Coventry.