The Story of the Luncheon Club

The Luncheon Club first began around 1985, predating the former Hackney Chinese Community Services at the Ellingfort Road location. The first lunch service was organised primarily by housewives whose husbands worked long hours late into the night, tucked away in the kitchens of Chinese takeaway shops. Wanting to support the Chinese community in Hackney, these aunties came together to cook. Soon after, they approached the council and were allocated a small space just large enough for cooking. The aunties prepared the food there and then served it at Hackney Town Hall. This was the predecessor of what we now know as the Luncheon Club. In those early days, the lunch service was fully self-funded. It was an act of charity that brought the taste of home and a sense of comfort to the Chinese diaspora in Hackney, many of whom were older people.

Not long after, the aunties returned to the council and, this time, secured the iconic building at 28–32 Ellingfort Road—what later became Hackney Chinese Community Services, or 克尼華人中心 (Hackney Chinese Centre). This time the space is much larger. And most importantly, it was dedicated specifically to the Chinese diaspora, a space of our own. The dining hall could accommodate ten tables and around eighty people. With the new space came funding. The centre officially opened in 1987, with the Luncheon Club at its heart as its core flagship service, alongside advice and advocacy services.

The journey was not always smooth, of course, and the team behind the Luncheon Club has made countless sacrifices over the years. The staff team, Yan, Jennie, Jenny, and the OG aunties, Sindy, Moon, Feng, Betty, Kan, Mui, Lan, and so many others, alongside generations of volunteers, have always been the engine driving the Luncheon Club forward. Now, one year on from the relocation of the former Hackney Chinese Community Services to the Old Bath House at 12–14 Englefield Road and its rebranding as the East and Southeast Asian Community Centre, the Luncheon Club remains its core flagship service. Many of the Luncheon Club’s activities today have been staples since the very beginning: members’ birthday celebrations, and festive lunches for Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, and Christmas.

Since its first service in 1985, the Luncheon Club has brought friends together, witnessed new relationships form, watched hair turn white—and new hair grow. Members have come and gone. Many have grown old alongside the Centre, still here, but now as service users rather than service providers. Some have since left this world where the Centre still stands. The Luncheon Club has now expanded to include the wider ESEA community, our new neighbours, and all who have come to share in our community. In just over a year, we have witnessed the Luncheon Club transform into a hub for intergenerational connection, continuing its magic four decades after the lunch service first began.