Prince Harry and Meghan shine light on café helping homeless

EDINBURGH — Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are making their first official trip to Scotland this morning.

The soon-to-be-royal couple’s visit will include a stop at a café that helps support the homeless. It’s called “Social Bite,” and the work being done there has already attracted attention from Hollywood royalty.

As CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports from Edinburgh Castle, the biting north wind did little to chill the enthusiasm of scores of Scots who came out to welcome the prince and his bride-to-be to the Scottish capital.

The iconic castle provided the stage, and the Royal Marines Scotland Band the soundtrack to the couple’s first official joint visit north of the English border.

Their next stop was to be the considerably less grand, rather unremarkable looking Social Bite café. But the little diner has done some pretty remarkable things for the homeless.

As D’Agata reports, Ms. Markle is not the most famous Hollywood star to visit, with George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio already counted among Social Bite’s fans. But while founder Josh Littlejohn had courted the Hollywood royalty, the request from actual royalty came as a surprise.

“Just got an email saying Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are planning to visit Edinburgh on this particular day and can they come and visit Social Bite,” Littlejohn told CBS News.” His reaction? “Wow!”

His restaurants not only feed the homeless, but employ them too, and all profits go toward helping people facing a similar plight.

Catering assistant Sonny Murray used to be a heroin addict.

“I would still be jumping about and getting into trouble and getting put in prison, things like that,” he told D’Agata. “So for Social Bite to give me a chance of having a job… it’s totally changed my life.” 

The ability to change lives is one reason convincing George Clooney to sprinkle a little stardust, to raise the charity’s profile, wasn’t too hard for Littlejohn.

According to the café boss, Clooney “was just unbelievably charming and funny, and had the whole staff in stitches. I’ve never experienced anything like that, with all the women queuing from six in the morning, screaming.”

And while that spotlight helped Prince Harry and Meghan take notice, battling homelessness is an issue the couple already held close to their hearts.