Prince Harry and Meghan Markle kicked off their first official joint visit to Scotland with a city tour of Edinburgh where they greeted fans on the Esplanade leading up to Edinburgh Castle.
They also met Pony Major Mark Wilkinson and regimental mascot Cruachan IV, who nearly bit Prince Harry when he tried to pet the Shetland pony.
These public engagements leading up to their 19 May wedding aren’t just about shaking hands with their fans and photo opps with Shetlands, they’re also there to promote charity work throughout the UK. So after nearly getting bitten by the pony, Prince Harry and his American fiancé visited Social Bite, a social enterprise cafe and sandwich shop in Edinburgh dedicated to raising money to end homelessness in Scotland. In addition to learning more about Social Bite's work, the royal couple also met the staff and toured the kitchen.
Social Bite, which has six locations throughout Scotland, is responsible for distributing 100,000 hot drinks and items of food to homeless people each year, the BBC reports. Social Bite also makes a point of employing staff who have been homeless at one point or another, too. According to their website, at least one in four staff members at Social Bite have struggled with homelessness.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle aren’t the only celebrities to make a stop at Social Bite while they were in Edinburgh. While Leonardo DiCaprio was in Edinburgh to speak at the Scottish Business Awards in November 2016, he made a stop at Social Bite’s high-end restaurant, Home by Maison Bleue, that feeds homeless people every Monday afternoon in addition to diners. George Clooney met Social Bite’s owners Alice Thompson and Josh Littlejohn in November 2015 at Social Bite’s Rose Street branch—he even stopped for a few selfies with the staff during his visit.
