RAF LAKENHEATH, England — Tucked away on one end of the third floor of a nondescript building in the middle of the base is an airman’s alternative to the club life.

Café Decurro opened six months ago under the auspices of the base chapel and has seen a steady increase in the flow of people who stop by to watch TV, play pingpong or just relax. It is part of Combat Touch, a command initiative to reach out to the spiritual lives of airmen.

“The goal is to build a healthy community for people in the dorms,” said Tim Hawkins, who oversees the cafe. “There’s always that ... group that wants to drink. That’s easy to find. We want to make it easier to find a group making other choices.”

Hawkins said young people away from home for the first time could make the wrong choice, which would have a serious impact on their lives.

Although the cafe is sponsored by the chapel and holds a worship service every Friday evening, Hawkins said the religious aspect is low key.

“We don’t get in people’s faces,” he said. “We want to make people feel welcome.”

That approach seems to be working. Open from 5 to 9 every night except Sunday, the cafe has become a stopping point for airmen on their way home from work. They stop to see who is around and what’s going on.

Airman 1st Class Paul Kerkman, who joined the 48th Medical Support Squadron in March, said he used to hang out at a Starbucks in the States. Café Decurro is the closest thing to that atmosphere on the base.

“You run into a lot of different people,” he said. “It’s a great morale booster.”

The cafe benefits from its location down the hall from the First Term Airmen Center, where new members of the Air Force learn about their service and their new base.

Airman Sandy Lieu of the 48th Dental Squadron said she learned about the cafe through the airmen center. She called it “a place to just go and hang out and relax.”

She, too, said the cafe, which takes its name from the Latin word for refuge, is a welcome alternative to the club scene.

“It’s just another alternative — hopefully, a positive one,” she said.

Hawkins said the cafe has the support of the command, but has been able to let the people who visit the cafe determine the direction it takes.

“It’s not a top-down program. It’s a program that’s been able to grow from the bottom up,” he said.

Café Decurro has sponsored several popular trips around England. Hawkins said the bus was filled quickly for day trips to places such as York and Warwick Castle.

The cafe is becoming a necessary stop for new airmen to the base. Airman 1st Class Thomas Hysell of the 48th Component Maintenance Squadron said his sponsor showed him the cafe soon after his arrival. He’s been a regular ever since.

Hysell is not a drinker, he said, so the club scene doesn’t appeal to him.

Without Café Decurro, he said, “Right now, I’d probably be sitting in my room playing video games.”