Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, your local supermarket will start stocking banana flavoured toothpaste, just for you.

Welcome back and all that.

So, the news last week was that we had to start paying our rent in a three month chunk instead of a one month chunk, which was fair enough, everyone else did. This meant that when it came to rent payment day, instead of five thousand quid, we had to have fifteen thousand quid.

That’s fine, I mean, once you’ve paid up, at least you can forget about it for three months. However, depending on when the dates fall, you could have sent out a load of cheques to suppliers and fixed a knackered fridge, and that would leave you short for that rent payment.

But this is how it is.

So when Jim and Jean are sat at table 8, discussing the consistency of the chilled spinach soup or questioning wether the heritage potatoes were from Kent or Sussex, the restaurant owner is debating over who gets paid, the fruit and vegetable supplier, the landlord or HMRC.

Anyway, one morning, a pretty normal morning, Donna opened the mail and handed an envelope to me.

“What’s this Donna?”

“The bank are offering us a credit card, not sure why.”

It’s funny, a couple of years earlier, when we could have zero customers for three days, the bank giggled in our faces when we asked for help. Now, when they could see some cash in our account, they wanted us to have more cash.

Seems backside first really.

“No no dear customer, there’s cash coming into your account now, you’re a safe bet.”

“Oh yea, you reckon?”

Anyway, back to the credit card. We didn’t really get why we would want it. You see, back in 2010, cards weren’t as widely used, these days you can go to a farmers market or a car boot sale and a vendor can take payment by card, right there in the middle of a field. But if we rang a supplier back then and asked to pay by credit card, they would have come around and given us a good chinning. But don’t get me wrong, you could pay some of the larger guys, but generally, credit cards were what you used in Debenhams.

And because of that, I was about to throw the letter in the bin, but Donna changed my mind, “Hang on, it could be useful one day.”

So we completed the form which was in the envelope and sent it off, then a week later, we had a credit card with a three thousand quid limit, which we could use in M&S to buy a pint of milk for the restaurant.

If you think we deserve a coffee for writing this, that’s the button.

Coffee

So that’s that. Right, back to some interesting stuff. I was prepping in the kitchen with Emma and Skater Jane when Donna joined us, with Tina Terminator marching behind her.

“Andrew, the coffee machine is playing up, Tina and I have tried to get it working but it’s not happening. Can you have a look at it?”

And of course, Tina knew what was wrong with it, “It’s the element, I’m telling you, I’ve seen it before.”

I had a look as Tina stood with her arms folded and watched me, “It’s the element, it’s always the element.”

And because there was no pressure, and no heat coming from anywhere on the machine, Tina was probably very correct. Obviously.

“Yes I knew it, this brand is stupid.”

We needed to get it fixed, I mean, we had a filter machine with a ten cup jug, but that wouldn’t satisfy Jim and Jean’s craving for a Moccacinolattefrappe.

“Right Donna, I’ll give Vic and Tommy a call.”

“Oh great.”

I left a voice message with Vic, then I went back to the kitchen to carry on trying to get some food prepared. As usual Emma was desperate for information, she wanted to know everything about everything.

“Andrew, what’s wrong with the machine? Is it expensive to fix?”

“I think it’s the element, well, Tina said it is, so it must be. No idea how much it’ll be, I’ve called the sparks, he’ll know.”

“Called who? The sparks?”

“Yea, the sparks, the sparky, the electrician.”

“Oh my god, that’s so cool, I didn’t know trades people had nicknames. Tell me some more.”

Oh no, I forgot that Emma was posh and wouldn’t have heard these terms before. Now she was going to get all giddy because she was learning about these little scamps and their curious habits.

“Err, the only other one I know is a chippy, a joiner.”

“Oh that’s so cool, but why chippy?’

“Well, because he chips away at bits of wood I suppose.”

“Oh yes, of course. Tell me some more.”

“I can’t Emma, I don’t know anymore.”

“Oh go on, you must know some more.”

“Emma, I don’t.”

“What about a plumber, what’s their nickname?”

“Emma, honestly, I don’t know. I can’t just make them up.”

Suddenly, Skater Jane emerged from her prep trance, “Hang on mate, did you say you’ve rang the electrician, is that Vic?”

“Yes Jane, Vic and Tommy should be here this afternoon, so probably tomorrow morning.”

“Ah no, Tommy does my head in.”

Emma hadn’t met the maintenance duo yet, “What’s wrong with them Jane?”

“Mate, the little Tommy bloke talks absolute shit, for ages. And he thinks I’m a lad.”

Emma laughed really loudly at this, “Well come on Jane, you are a bit boyish.”

“Don’t you start. You can make them a coffee and listen to Tommy chatting shit about his Staffy.”

And right on time, well, the next morning, Vic and Tom arrived to look at the machine. And because she was so curious, Emma left the kitchen and strolled over to the coffee room, just as Tina Terminator was leaving the room.

“Don’t go in Emma, the little one with the Batman shoes is there.”

And there they were, Vic is tinkering with the machine as Tommy looks over his shoulder, complete with his Batman trainers.

So in her best ‘I’m one of you guys’ tone, Emma leaned against the wall and asked, “Alright lads, I’m Emma, wanna coffee?”

Vic mumbled a yes, Tommy turned around, “Alwight Emma, yea I’d love a coffee.”

But before she could leave to make the coffee, Tommy had a question, but he didn’t really want an answer.

“Are you new here Emma?”

“Yes I am, I’ve been here a few….”

“I’ve got a niece called Emma, right cheeky mare she is. She was round last Saturday, mouthing off as always, she’s got this and she’s got that. Always has to have better than everyone else. I said to my missus, she’s barred from this house, she only comes round to talk our ears off. Then the bloody dog started, I’m telling ya, every time she comes round there’s grief, and it’s not my doing. Isn’t that right Vic?”

“Yes Tommy.”

Emma took her chance to escape, “Right, that’s great, I’ll make coffees.”

When she came back to the kitchen, she was in a right paddy, “Oh my god, I’m not making them coffees and I’m not going back over there. He talks such a load of bollocks.”

And Jane nodded, “Told ya mate.”

Vic had bad news, the coffee machine was fixable, but because it was a cheap one, which we brought with us from the York restaurant, the cost of fixing it was more than the value of the machine. But Vic was a decent bloke, so he did’t charge us a call out fee.

Now we needed a coffee machine, but a real decent one would cost thousands of pounds, we didn’t have thousands of pounds. Well we did, but that money was sat in the bank waiting to cover cheques to pay suppliers.

Donna rang the coffee guy we used in York, he was the only coffee bloke we knew, so we had to turn to him. And fortunately, he had a reconditioned machine, a bean to cup machine. These things would freshly grind the right amount of beans for each cup of coffee. Then they would add milk, or foam the milk automatically, depending on what button you pressed. And, he could have the machine with us the next working day.

This was great news, until he told us that it was eighteen hundred quid. We just didn’t have the spare cash to pay for it, but we needed something.

Then, I had a great idea, and it was as follows.

“Hiya mate, how’s it going with you? Great, look, we want the machine, but we don’t have the cash. Can we pay you with our company credit card?”

There we go, that credit card, the one I thought wasn’t worth having, well it saved us. We could pay for the machine with the card, then pay off the debt in smaller monthly payments.

“Sorry mate, I don’t take card payments. I don’t even have a card machine.”

Why? Why is nothing simple? There was three thousand pounds available on that credit card and we couldn’t get to it.

But wait, “Donna, type one thousand eight hundred pounds into our card machine, as if you’re taking payment from a customer.”

Donna did just that, then I used the new company credit card to make that payment, as if I was a diner paying for a very expensive and boozy meal.

And it actually went through. That meant, in a couple of days, £1,800 would be in the restaurant account, then we could send a cheque to our friend the coffee guy, and he would send the machine.

Then we would pay the credit card bill in small monthly payments. So basically, we liquidated the funds on the credit card through the restaurant card machine.

And there we go, there is always a way.

Thanks for STILL reading this, it’s appreciated.

Andrew and Donna

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, you’ll become a world class ice skater by Friday.

Hiya, thanks for jumping back into our story. And by the way, Part 104 means that two years have just melted away.

Things were starting to feel a little different at the restaurant, in a good way that it is.

Ben had left, and initially, I felt a bit sad about this, almost a bit lonely. That sounds a bit daft, I was still in the kitchen with Skater Jane and Emma, but those two got on so well that I felt like an outsider.

But as the weeks went by, Emma changed. She had started out as this mildly posh girl who was a little on the prim side, but working side by side with Jane and myself was having an affect. No more talking about choccy chip cookies, hot chocolate or Lady Gaga. She didn’t even wince anymore if she nicked herself with a knife.

“Oh what a bastard, now I’ll have to stick a plaster and a glove on.”

She was chopping faster, she had learned how to sharpen her knife properly, she knew how to organise the fridge ready for service and she started wearing a Sharpie in her hair.

And if I asked, “How long for that roasted pineapple?”, without looking, Emma knew the answer.

“Three, minutes. See, how good am I?”

“Yea yea, you’re the best.”

But I was dragged away from the skills of Emma because my mobile was ringing in the office, which was unusual, because reception was bad down in the basement.

It was Howard, the accountant, so I tried calling back on the landline, but it was engaged.

I ran upstairs and I could see that Donna was using the phone, she was having a most enjoyable conversation with the laundry company. Another crap laundry company.

So I took the mobile out to the back of the restaurant, to the area which we paid service charge for but weren’t allowed to use, and called Howard back.

It was a good call. Howard just wanted to let us know, that according to our figures, we were starting to improve. However, we already knew this because we could look at the tables in the restaurant and see people were sat at them. But it was nice to hear this from a numbers person.

But then he started talking about current liabilities, working capital and tax provisions, and I became bored.

Time to get back to the kitchen and listen to Emma and Skater Jane swearing like a pair of dockers.

If you reckon we deserve a coffee for writing this. That’s the button you need to hit.

coffee

But on the way, and because I had just spoken to Howard, I remembered that a cheque which we had sent to the landlord for the monthly rent payment, hadn’t been cashed. I ran back up stairs to mention it to Donna, but she was still on the phone to the laundry people.

I decided it would be best to phone the landlords office to make sure the cheque had arrived, didn’t want them thinking that we’d been dodging them.

I didn’t like speaking to them, they were intimidating, they made you feel like a little warm turdy which had landed on their mahogany desk. And the last time we had any dealings with them was about a year ago, when we told them we couldn’t pay the rent, and they allowed us to pay monthly instead of every three months.

It was back outside on the mobile phone, but I didn’t speak to the actual landlord, he was probably too busy to speak to scum like us these days.

Instead I was put through to the accounts department, “Hi it’s Andrew from Vanilla Black, quick question, did you receive a cheque for our monthly rent payment?”

Tappy tap tap on the computer.

“Mmmmmm, yes we’ve received that cheque. But tell me, why are you paying monthly, why not quarterly, like everyone else?”

See, see what I mean. This is what happens, once you start speaking to them, they attack you.

But fortunately, we had clearance from the actual landlord, he told us this was OK about a year ago, so I was quite smug.

“Ay yes, we had a meeting with our landlord and he said we could pay monthly instead of every three months. This was ages ago.”

But Mrs. Ruth-Less pulled out her ace card, “Yes, I can see that on your file, but that was for one month only.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Yes he gave clearance, but for one month. Then you were supposed to catch up and start paying three months rent up front, like all of our other tenants.”

This was scary, confusing and funny at the same time. We assumed that instead of paying three months up front we could pay one month up front, forever, we didn’t realise it was a one off. And we’d done it for a year and nobody had noticed. Brilliant.

So I took the telling off from Ruth-Less and ran back into the restaurant, dead chuffed at what had happened.

Donna was still on the phone to the laundry people so I told Skater Jane and Emma.

They thought it was hilarious, Jane gave a high five, “No Jane, we’re not doing that Jane.”

“Well piss off then mate.”

When Donna finally finished on the phone I told her the funny story, which she liked, but she was also too busy gnashing her teeth because of the laundry company.

“I hate these people, all they have to do is deliver the right amount of napkins, our napkins. How can they get it so wrong? We send them a hundred soiled napkins, they clean and press them, then send them back. There’s nothing else to it.”

I didn’t have the answer, but Tina Terminator knew exactly what was wrong with the laundry company. And as she walked past us, she told us.

“These people are stupid.”

“Anyway Donna, Howard called and he said that finally, our figures are starting to look better. Not our figures, the restaurant figures. Good eh?”

“Well yes it’s good, but I can see that, look at the diary for next week.”

I looked, and it was good, I mean, I didn’t add up any numbers, but there was a lot of writing in the diary, that was a good sign.

Then Donna added, “I’m going to have to advertise for another member of waiting staff, Tina and Sophia are great, but some nights we just can’t keep up.”

So I got back to the kitchen and carried on prepping with Jane and Emma, “Hey, I’m the rose between two thorns here aren’t I?”

A few days later and Donna had ran interviews and taken on a new front of house team member.

“What’s she like Donna?”

“Yea she’s canny, she’s from Canada originally, and she’s eager, she wants to learn lots about wine.”

Tina Terminator, was listening in, as always, “Don’t worry, I can teach her, I’m very good with wine.”

Then Donna took me to one side, out of Terminator range.

“The only thing about her is, I’m going to have a problem with the uniform.”

Now, the reason why this was a thing, is because we always supplied the shirt and apron for the team, and getting them the right size was a pain. The company which Donna used never had the right size, or they’d send the wrong size and then she would have to mess about returning them by post. It was a right chew on.

“But hang on Donna, I thought you bought a box full of different sizes so you would always have the right one for them.”

“Yes yes, but that’s not the problem. She tells me she’s a size 8, but she can’t be. I’m a 12 or 14 and she’s about my size. If I give her a size 8, she won’t get into it.”

“Eh, why does she think she’s a size 8 then?”

“No idea, but I can’t tell her that she isn’t. And if I hand her a 12 she’ll be offended.”

“It’s a tricky one, I can’t think of a way around it. Unless you just give her a 12 and hope she doesn’t look at the label.”

“Yea, that’s what I was hoping. But she’ll look eventually, like when she’s washing it, she’ll definitely see it then.”

We pondered for a few seconds.

“Hang on. That’s it. Yes, I won’t let her see the label, I’ll cut it out. Yes, I’ll cut a size 12 label out and tell her it’s a size 8.”

“That’s a brilliant idea Donna. She won’t be offended, and she’ll still believe that she’s a size 8.”

And that’s what Donna did. She took a couple of shirts, cut out the size 12 label, and handed them to the new girl.

Did it work? It certainly did. In fact, the same situation happened many times, and the same trick worked every time.

Right, thanks for reading this. Catch up next week and see what happens.

Andrew and Donna

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, tomorrow morning, you’ll find a Cadbury’s Flake under your pillow.

Hello to you and welcome back.

Right, if your memory is half decent, you’ll remember that we took on a young lady called Emma, and we were going to train her up to become a chef. Emma had no experience of working in a kitchen, but she liked cooking at home.

And of course, there’s no difference between cooking at home or in a commercial kitchen is there.

Emma was in her mid twenties and originally from the Manchester area, or somewhere like that. Emma was small, not like thirty centimetres small, but smaller than myself, Ben and Jane. Probably around the same size as Tina Terminator.

However, even though Emma was small, you definitely knew that she was there. I mean, she wasn’t actually loud, she just talked a lot, but in an excited tone, like, her mind seemed to be bouncing around. She could be talking about some choccy chip cookies she’d baked at home and then suddenly she’d remember that she’d made a hot chocolate to go with them and she would become even more excited about this than the cookies.

If you think we deserve a coffee for writing this, that’s the button.

cofffffee

It sounds a bit annoying, but it was actually, a little infectious. Although it did cause Ben to glaze over, like he’d been hypnotised.

“Ben Ben, your hairs on fire.”

“Errr, yea yea, cool.”

Fortunately, Ben only had another week left with us, he was just staying to help out, while Emma picked up speed.

And there was something else, Emma was posh. Not like Royal Family posh, but she spoke correctly and didn’t have an accent.

Actually, most of the team were posh, even as far back as the York days, posh people worked with us.

Their Mams had never been cleaners, shop workers or Tupperware sellers. Their Dads had never used a spanner at work, wore a boiler suit or changed a car wheel. Some of them had even been to private schools.

So as far as Donna and I were concerned, that meant they were posh.

Keep your hair on, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with posh people, we just weren’t used to working with so many of them. Well, they worked for us, that was even more weird.

However, when I mentioned to Emma that she was posh, she strongly denied it. And to prove it, she told me a very sad story.

Apparently, many many years ago, when her parents were struggling with finances, for a period of time, her mother had to write a shopping list for the supermarket run, just in case she was tempted to over spend.

Take a minute to wipe your tears dear reader.

Emma learned quickly, and she was incredibly eager, she asked questions constantly.

“Guys, why do you check the food delivery on the morning?”

“Well, to make sure it’s right, sometimes they don’t send stuff and we end up running short. And the buggers still charge us.”

“Oh right, why don’t they get the order correct though?”

It was a very good question, “Dunno really Emma, they just don’t.”

Skater Jane had the answer, “Cos they’re bastards.”

“Guys, why do you have two lifts?”

“They’re called dumb waiters Emma, one is for plated food, the other is for dirty crockery and cutlery coming back to the kitchen.”

“Oh wow, that’s like, so cool.”

In fact, I had forgotten how much civilians didn’t know about the general workings of a kitchen. Usually we employed people with some experience, or they’d been to college, so they knew how to dance around a kitchen.

“Emma, say ‘backs’ when you’re carrying trays and pans and walking behind us.”

“OK, but why?”

“So we know that you’re there, otherwise one of us could turn around and crash into you.”

“Ah, cool.”

“Emma, wash a knife when you’ve used it, don’t leave it in the sink with a load of pots.”

“OK, but why?”

“Because someone could reach into the sink, not see it, then grab the blade. Imagine that Emma, poor Ben could end up with three less fingers, and it would be your fault.”

“Ah, I see, that makes sense. Sorry about the fingers Ben.”

Emma was also quite funny. She could be quite entertaining.

“Emma, put some wet blue roll under your chopping board like Jane.”

“Yea OK, but why?”

Jane demonstrated, “So it doesn’t slip around mate, look,” and Jane gave her chopping board a shuffle.

“Ah yea I see. Oh my god, this is so cool, I’m learning loads.”

And on it went.

“Look Emma, let me show you how to chop properly. The tip of the knife doesn’t leave the board, and the cut comes in a rocking motion. It’ll feel odd at first but you’ll pick it up. And it makes you look like a real chef as well.”

“Yes I see.”

“Close the fridge door Emma, you’re letting the cold out.”

“Turn the tap off Emma, you’re running the hot water.”

“Turn that gas down Emma, your sauces is boiling it’s arse off.”

“Shut the oven door properly Emma, the temperature will drop.”

“Move that pan Emma, the handle will get too hot to hold.”

And within the first couple of hours, Emma did what all new recruits do, she cut her finger with a knife.

“Oh my god, oh my god, I’m bleeding, look guys, I’m bleeding.”

Ben looked, “Errr, yea, yea, clean your area and sanitise, yea.”

Emma grabbed a handful of blue roll, wrapped it around her finger, and stood and looked at the three of us, “Why does nobody care?”

Skater Jane turned to her, “Mate, it’s just a nick, you’ll have many more by the end of the week. Don’t worry about it.”

I took Emma to the first aid box and gave her a plaster, “Stop whining, clean it in the hand sink and put this plaster on.”

And when Emma saw that the plaster was blue, she forgot about her massacred hand, “Oh my god, you have coloured plasters. That’s so cool.”

“Well it’s not cool really Emma, all kitchen plasters are blue.”

“Oh wow, why?”

“It’s so we can see them in food. Listen yea, if your plaster drops off, it could be anywhere, we would have to throw away everything that you had made. But because there’s no blue food, we can find the plaster easily. Do you get what I mean? If it fell into a pan of custard, we could easily spot it. Then we would only need to throw the custard away. And, when you’re wearing a blue plaster, and you’re on the Tube, other chefs will know that you’re a chef as well.”

Emma liked this bit.

“Oh my god, that’s so cool.”

“You’ll learn all this on your food hygiene course anyway.”

“There’s so much to take in, I don’t know how you guys do it.”

“Right, stick a vinyl glove on so you can still work, you’re not getting off that easy.”

We deliberately gave Emma a wide range of tasks, she needed as much practice as possible.

She made toasted pine nut purée, coconut soup, pineapple chutney and wasabi cream. She softened Somerset butter and folded in the sea salt crystals. She toasted seeds for a starter and pickled some spring onions. And using glucose she made savoury barley and rye crisp breads.

But, and this is the important part, she was learning to feel the kitchen, to become part of the mechanism.

“Here Emma, let me show you something. See these spring onions, and the pickle that they’re going into, it’s just a recipe.”

Emma wondered where this was going, “Er yes, I know.”

“But that’s not important, people think recipes are important, but anyone can follow these. Working in the kitchen is about more than that.”

“I don’t understand, surely I need to know how to make all of the elements of every dish?”

“Well you do, but we could grab anyone from the street, stand them in the corner and give them a recipe and some ingredients. They could just prepare dish after dish all day. In fact, a lot of kitchens do just that. But watch.”

I turned to the stove and beckoned her to join me. I took over a few of Ben’s and Jane’s pans.

“Look, this coffee is for a gel, it has to come to a simmer before the agar can be added, but simmer it for too long and some will evaporate, then the amounts will be off.”

“Oh yes, I didn’t think about that.”

“But listen.” I turned to Jane, who had her back to the stove because she was working on the bench, “Jane, how long before your coffee reaches a simmer?”

“About another thirty seconds and it’ll be there mate.”

Emma looked back at the pan of coffee, “She’s right, it’s about to simmer. How does she know?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Jane, it’s all yours.”

Jane spun around and, and with a whisk and agar at the ready, she added it to the pan.

“Now watch, Ben is making a baked blue cheese thing for the toasty starter, I had nothing to do wth making it, but I already know that it’s not far off done.”

I opened the oven and gave the tray a wobble, “Another three minutes Ben?”

“Errr, yea yea, there or four, yea.”

Emma was confused, “But how do you all know? Ben didn’t even look at that tray when you asked him.”

“This is the point I’m making Emma. Chefs don’t just prepare and cook food, like I said, we can employ anyone to stand and follow recipes. It’s about knowing what’s happening around you all the time, even if you’re having a conversation about Adele or Lady Gaga. You need to know what’s happening in three different pans at at the same time, and wether your brine is cool enough without looking. Focusing on one dish, boxing it off, then starting another, that’s for robots.”

“But how? That sounds impossible.”

“Jane, tell her.”

“Look mate, you just learn. Even if you’re chatting shit about something yea, always have your mind on what you’re doing. Even as I’m telling you this, I know that my shallots behind me need looking at, I can hear them in the pan, they’ve stopped spitting, the liquid has burned off.”

Emma looked as if someone had just opened a door and shown her Narnia.

“Oh my god, this is amazing. I want to be able to do all of this.”

“Don’t worry, you will. But look, as an example, when you were folding the salt into that butter, you need to have pictures in your mind of everything else. Ben told you that your pine nuts were golden and ready, but you need to be thinking about them instead of him.”

“Yes he did, thanks Ben.”

“Listen to the noises on the stove behind you, learn to distinguish which are your pans. If you have something in the oven, say beetroot, be aware of the smell. When it first goes in you smell nothing, then as it heats and the aromas develop, monitor them, let the aromas be a reminder that the beetroot is still there.”

“This is amazing, I didn’t think of any of this, I was just thinking about following recipes.”

“Most people think like that. Quick, listen to the ice cream machine, it’s labouring, that means that the mix is freezing and thickening, so it’s about ready. That’ll be the coconut sorbet. Ya see, that machine is four metres away, but I know what it’s doing. ”

By the end of the week, Emma was getting it. She was juggling tasks and bouncing between the different zones, flipping a frying pan, down to the oven to check a soufflé and around to the freezer to turn out the marmalade parfait. She was starting to do the kitchen dance.

And Friday was Ben’s last day. We were sad to see Ben go, he’d been with us since we opened the London restaurant, but everyone moves on some day.

We never saw Ben after that day, not sure why. We were still struggling financially, we were still sending out cheques and hoping that companies didn’t cash them for a few days, and we were still working form 9am until midnight. So keeping contact with people was down to number 427 on the list.

Restaurant life!

Anyway, catch us next week and we’ll tell you more things.

Thanks for reading, Andrew and Donna.

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, you’ll immediately have the ability to run as fast as a Gazelle.

Welcome back to the weekly story about trying to prevent a restaurant from going bankrupt whilst also struggling to convince the very general public that if they visited us they would not be eating a veggie burger. Or pasta bake.

And if you’ve been reading these Posts, you’ll know that last week we finally found a normal person to join the kitchen team, and that’s good going.

But we’ll talk about that person next week, you’ve had enough kitchen chatter for now. So today, we’ll run you through some front of house incidents.

Hang on a tick, front of house just means anything to do with the waiting staff, the restaurant floor, that type of thing. Basically, anything you as the diner sees. The nice bits.

So, just as Emma, the new trainee chef, started working for us, we started to become a little busier. And the reason we became a little busier, is because someone must have put an advert in the Evening Standard, ‘Vanilla Black may be in the shit a bit because they are training up a new chef, so get in there right now.’

And because of this extra busyness, Donna, Tina and Big Sophia got together and made a plan. You see, previously, in York, and the early days of London, service was organised, but there was no written structure. Nothing wrong with this, but it needed nailing down.

A customer journey was drawn up, this traced the diner’s path, from entering the building, until they left. Now, although there was already a system of sorts, having it down on paper just felt a bit better, and it also highlighted any gaps.

But the first hurdle was coats.

If you wanna spend three quid on a coffee for us, just for the hell of it, that’s the button.

Well?

You know that coat cupboard you have at home, the one where seven coats fight for one hook. That cupboard where the jacket that you’re looking for has been buried under a Parka and two Donkey Jackets. And someone thought it would be helpful to tie three rucksacks over your tweed blazer to stop you from wearing it.

“Bloody hell Jean, I’ve accidentally pulled a toggle off your duffel coat.”

Well, imagine that same situation but with thirty coats, and briefcases, and rucksacks, and tote bags and a couple of Tesco carriers. It wasn’t a problem in the summer, but come the winter, when everyone was wearing an overcoat and carrying a brolley with that briefcase. Then it gets a little annoying.

We had an area behind reception which was used as a hangy zone, and because we’d been quiet, it was just a case of sticking the coats on a hook and remembering who they belonged to. However, as we became busier, it became harder to recall which coat belonged to who.

And Tina’s system of holding up three black rain Macs and asking, “Which one is yours?”, just wasn’t good enough.

But luckily, Big Sophia had an idea. She suggested that we use coat hangers to hang the coats onto, then add those to the hooks, and then tie little numbered labels around the neck of the hanger. So the two people on table 7, had a 7 label on their hanger. Brilliant.

This worked well, most of the time. The times it didn’t work well were when diners wore similar coats. For example, the night seven business chaps turned up and they all wore long black woollen overcoats. As they were leaving, the hanger was brought out and a coat was handed to each bloke.

And as they chatted to each other, and weren’t taking too much notice, they put their coats on. Or they tried to put them on. The coats all looked the same, they only differed in size, so there was a lot of confusion.

One of the bigger chaps ended up wearing the overcoat of a little fella, which fitted him like a t-shirt.

The diners journey was discussed, and was then tracked. Tina documented exactly what should happen-

Drinks menus given

Food menus offered

Drinks delivered

Food order taken

Wine order taken

Then the food order was taken to the kitchen and little snacks were delivered to the table.

“Ey up, we didn’t order these, we’re not paying for them are we?. They’re ‘avin our eyes out Jean.”

“They’re complimentary Sir,” and Jim’s eyes lit up.

Snacks are finished and the kitchen is informed, then bread and butter is delivered to the table-

“Bread made with soured cream and some sea salted Somerset butter.”

“Is this free as well?”

“Yes Jim.”

Soup spoon given if required.

Starters arrive to a table, and when finished, the kitchen is informed.

Mains are delivered to the table, when finished, dessert menus are offered.

So as you can see, the procedure was being processed and written like a flow chart, this meant that when new team members started, they had something to work from, and everyone would be following the same path.

There was a lot more to go into this than what’s mentioned above, such as dealing with diner queries and allergens, but to be honest, you’ll probably get bored of reading about it.

However, although this procedure was great to have in writing, it didn’t account for human behaviour. Because after all, people are sometimes unpredictable. And sometimes, just a bit daft. A few little examples.

“Er excuse me, that man over there has a bigger portion than me.”

“Sorry, what do you mean?”

“I can see from here. That man over there, on that table of four, his portion is bigger than mine.”

And sometimes it’s difficult to deal with an incident without upsetting people.

“Excuse me, this dish comes with a poached duck egg, yes?”

“Yes that’s right.”

“Well, the description doesn’t make sense, what other type of egg could it be?”

“Err, well, we have served it with a hen egg in the past, and a quail egg before that.”

Can you hear that silence, can you?

And where in the written Diner Journey could we add, ‘how to deal with the question about the Shallot and Sage Pesto Tatin’.

“Excuse me, what type of fish is a shallot?”

I mean, how do you answer that. First of all, do you tell the geezer that it’s a vegetarian restaurant and we don’t serve fish? Or do you insult his intelligence and tell him that a shallot is kinda like an onion.

Or, do you throw some randomness into the mix, “You must be getting confused good Sir, we wouldn’t serve sage with fish, it just doesn’t work.”

Oh yes, and what about when Tina Terminator dropped olive on the floor near the dumb waiter! Right in the middle of service. You just can’t account for these things.

Olive oil on floors is nasty, it needs a good ten minutes of hot soapy water and plenty of time to dry. That ain’t happening at 8pm on a Friday evening.

But fortunately, Tina could handle that, a couple ‘wet floor’ signs went up and an explanation from Tina herself.

“I don’t know how it happened, Sophia must have bumped into me.”

Or that special phone call, “I’d like to book a table for two for next Thursday at 7:30pm. It’s my wife’s birthday, can you do something special for us?”

“Of course, and what special thing is Sir referring to?”

“Something for the birthday, you know. What do I get? An extra dessert with a candle. That would do.”

And as Donna, Tina and Sophia came to the end of writing the Diner Journey, they remembered about taxis. Bloody taxis!

So many times the same thing would happen. Customers would call a taxi, then pass the phone to someone front of house to explain the location, because the taxi driver didn’t know where we were.

So we did two things. Firstly, we wrote down the directions and street names of the exact roads to take to get to us. Don’t forget, this was London, you could have a no entry sign at both ends of a street. It wasn’t easy.

This was much more professional than Sophia describing the route on the phone in her own words, “Erm, I forget the name of the street near the Pig and Whistle, but turn left there, then a right, no, a left.”

And then we contacted a local taxi company, made sure they knew where we lived, and we called them when a customer needed a lift.

But hey, what about the guy who asked for a quiet table because he wanted to propose to his girlfriend. Yes, a simple request, but how did we know if the diners around him were going to be quiet. You just can’t predict the future.

We could have stuck him on table 9, right in the corner of the raised area, but Jim and Jean could have been on table 8, spoiling the moment.

“Jim, I’ve been thinking, we should get a hot tub for the garden. I can just see myself flopped in that on a Friday night, bottle of Shably and a Scotch egg. Bloody lovely.”

We gave them table 9 anyway. And because they were on table 9, tucked away from view, Tina and Sophia couldn’t make out if she said yes, or no.

But don’t fret people, when they left, he wrote a message on the back of his receipt and slotted it into the bill holder.

‘She said yes.’

Thanks for reading this, catch us next week as we train the new chef.

Donna and Andrew

Hiya to you and welcome back.

So, we’re back to interviewing chefs in the hope that we find someone decent to replace Ben. Interviewing people was both fun, and annoying. The fun part was when we would steer the conversation around to the candidates place of work and see if we could get some gossip, especially if it was a well known place.

“Yes, I worked at The Dog and Gun for a about a year.”

“Yea yea, whatever.”

Or….

“Yes, I worked for Gordon Ramrod for a about a year.”

“Ohhhh really, tell us more. What was he like? Is his chefs jacket always that fitted? Does he really do that jumpy up and down thing?”

The annoying part was when they simply didn’t turn up, or, even worse, they were a bit off their chump.

For example, and from memory, a small conversation with a young man who turned up for an interview.

“So, I see that you worked at Frooty Tooty Cafè, how was that?”

“Good.”

“Oh right, and what dishes did you cook there?”

“Different things.”

This was a difficult one to crack, and how did he manage to lower the temperature of the room so quickly.

“Good, lot’s of variety then. OK, well what was your favourite dish on the menu?”

“Chickpea curry.”

I knew this was going nowhere, there was no way Skater Jane would be able to gel with this fella, she would end up shaking him. And I was already starting to drift, good job the build up of icy fog in the room helped to keep me from nodding off.

“Nice yea, a bit of chickpea curry. Well, err, not sure if you’ve looked at our menu online”, that fixed stare meant he hadn’t.

“Right, well we don’t do the usual veggie food here, no chickpea curry or anything like that.”

Suddenly, Frosty Face perked up, and he immediately became defensive, “There’s nothing wrong with chickpea curry.”

“Well, I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, I’m just saying that we don’t do that style of food here.”

“I like chickpea curry, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Did this lad want a fight?

“Yea yea OK, but as I’ve just said, we do a different style of food here.”

“It’s filling and tasty.”

What was wrong with this lad?

“Right, listen, that movie, The Matrix, it’s a good movie, yea?”

“Yea, I like it.”

“Yes, so do I. But, it came out years ago, so my question is, would you, Frosty Face, would you pay to watch it tonight?”

“No. Why would I? I could watch it for free anytime.”

“Yes, exactly, and that’s my point with your chickpea curry. You can cook that at home, you can have it any time you want, so why go out and pay for it?

But you can’t cook smoked paprika fudge or tarragon sponge at home. And that’s why people come to us, for something different, something which they can’t do themselves.”

He didn’t say anything to that. But he did give me that fixed stare again.

Frosty Face left and the office warmed up. I ran into the kitchen to catch up on a bit of prep while I waited for the next challenger to turn up. Skater Jane wanted to know what the last guy was like, she knew that she could end up working with them pretty soon.

“What was wrong with him mate? I had a quick peak through the door, you could have chopped sticks on his face.”

“I really don’t know Jane, he was weird. It’s as if he wanted an argument or something. Bloody miserable as well.”

“Who’s next on the list then?”

If you reckon we deserve a £3 coffee for writing this guff, that’s the button.

stuff

“Err, a lass called Emma. She has zero experience, but to be honest, I don’t think it matters. It would be better to train someone up than have people like Frosty Face in the kitchen with us.”

I could sense that Skater Jane was gonna start rabbiting. Ben was at the other end of the kitchen doing some dessert prep, so I was going to get it all.

“Mate, do you ever judge someone just by their name? Like before you’ve even met them?”

“I suppose I do, sometimes, yea I suppose I do. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve already judged the next person who’s coming for the interview, Emma.”

“Really? Go on then.”

Come back here Ben.

“Well mate, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but she’ll be small, and a bit mousey, ya know, like a bit timid.”

“And you get that because she’s called Emma?”

“Yea. Don’t know why. And she’ll be quietly spoken, she’ll put her head down a bit when she’s talking as well.”

“Jesus Jane, do you know her hair colour as well?”

“Yea, light brown.”

Tina Terminator saved me from Jane’s description of Emma’s, “Andrew, the next person is here.”

So now, because Jane has planted this seed in my head, I’m ready for a little timid doormouse, and she’ll be scared and jittery and meek and mild. I’ll have to go careful with her.

She wasn’t, she was tall, had a huge smile on her face and she didn’t put her head down.

“Hiya, I’m Emma, pleased to meet you,” and she held out her hand.

“Hi Emma, come through.”

Before I could say a word, Emma went into a long speech about how she finished university and didn’t have a clue what she wanted to do. She had taken a job at a finance company and worked in admin.

I wasn’t sure what that actually entailed, but she was on a roll, so I didn’t ask.

She’d been working this job for two years and she hated it, and she knew she had to get out before she went mad. And the only thing she enjoyed doing was cooking at home, and she realised that she had absolutely no experience but she was willing to learn. And she wasn’t vegetarian but she’d looked at our menu online and thought that it looked amazing.

This Emma was no wallflower.

“OK Emma, yea, I get you, but you do realise that cooking a pan of stew for you and your flatmate is very different from cooking in a commercial kitchen?”

“No I know, I understand. I once cooked Christmas dinner for my family, there were ten of us.”

“Right, err, OK, I suppose that’s something.”

“Ha, that sounded ridicules didn’t it?”

“A bit yea.”

So, as we may have mentioned previously, when it came to team members, we were of the mindset that you can teach people how to do the job, but you can’t teach personality.

And because of that mindset, while Emma continued to tell me about her favourite dishes, I was deciding if it was a good idea to take on someone with no experience. There was definitely time, we were still dealing with some very quiet days so we could teach as we went along. And it was way better to have someone who learned our methods, instead of listening to, “In my last job we did it like this.”

I felt alright about this.

So as Emma finished rolling about tagliatelle, I had an idea for a final test, Emma could meet Jane and Ben.

“Ben, Jane, this is Emma.” Emma rushed over to shake their hands, Ben was surprised, Jane was pleasantly surprised.

There we go, it was decided, Emma would join us in two weeks. Easy.

I saw Emma to the door and agreed final details, then I went to speak to Jane to see what she thought. And as soon as I walked into the kitchen, Jane confessed.

“Ah mate, what a doyle I am, she’s not what I expected at all. She’s gonna be a good laugh.”

I set up some emails to let the other few candidates who’d been to see us that the job went to someone else. They never replied, they never did.

Except, this time, one of them emailed back to say that they were very disappointed as the food sounded great and they would have enjoyed learning from us.

Well then Frosty Face, we didn’t expect that from you.

Hiya and welcome back to the one hundredth edition. Yea, a hundred of these things.

And this is a sad one, Ben was leaving. Now, of course people leave, it’s inevitable, but in the early days of the restaurant, Donna and I worked every day and night with the team. Not just now and again, but every single hour of the day.

And you may ask, what’s so good about that? Well, a lot of restaurant owners don’t, they spend time in the office, or on that table at the back of the restaurant, or having meals in their restaurant. They may jump in now and again, but they probably have better stuff to do. We interviewed people who said they never saw the owners.

So, because we spent so much time with the team, and this is gonna sound a bit pukey, they almost became family. Actually, we saw more of them than we did of our family. So when one of them decided to leave, it hit us hard.

Actually, it was more like a death, because chances are, you’d never see them again, they would find a new life with a new family in another restaurant. And while you’re mourning the loss of a great kitchen porter who was like your first born, he was getting drunk with his new friends at Bobby’s Bistro.

But at least Ben had agreed to stay until we found someone else to replace him.

“Hey Donna, maybe we should pretend that we can’t find anyone else so Ben stays for ever.”

“No Andrew, that’s not right.”

So we advertised on Gumtree, and after the usual sitting around waiting for people to not turn up, or listening to them tell us how great they were because they’d peeled mushrooms for two years at a Michelin star restaurant, a lady arrived who actually seemed decent.

Lucia was from Spain but had been living in the UK for about five years. She had worked in a lot of places, restaurants, hotels and various pubs. To civilians this may seem like a lot, but in the world of hospitality it’s quite normal.

Donna and I liked Lucia, she wasn’t’t vegetarian but that was irrelevant to us, she had heard about this new style of vegetarian food which we were doing and was eager to learn.

So that was that, we were at Wednesday and Lucia agreed to start on the following Monday.

We let everyone else know and Ben was happy to say for little while longer, just to give time for Lucia to settle in.

When we told Tina Terminator about the new team member she had a contribution, “If her English isn’t very good I can help because I speak Spanish.”

“Oh right, didn’t realise you spoke Spanish as well Tina. But anyway, her English is perfect so we should be OK.”

Lucia was at the front door on Monday morning, with Tina, people are always keen on the first day. Tina was keen every day.

If you think this is ok you can buy us a coffee. It’s three quid.

Ciffee

We all bundled ourselves into the restaurant and I showed Lucia where to get changed. Donna had a few messages to run by me at reception so when Ben and Jane arrived I let them know that Lucia was already here.

By the time I had changed and arrived at the kitchen, the three of them were already there, and Ben had allocated a list of jobs to Lucia. Skater Jane was mixing up a batch of soufflé, Ben was preparing chicory for caramelising and Lucia was picking through spinach.

Hang on, picking through spinach doesn’t mean that you’re like, looking for something. It’s not as if you’re rummaging around in some spinach leaves searching for your car keys. It just means that you’re removing any crappy bits, or throwing out any tough stems.

So all was well.

Except, it wasn’t. Something didn’t feel right, something was off, but I couldn’t work out what it was. There was a stillness in the air, maybe an awkwardness. Like I had walked into a saloon bar in Devils Creek, just as Butch Cassidy had gone into a massive huff because he’d stubbed his toe on the leg of a bar stool.

Ben went to the sink to wash his knives, so I followed him, I needed to know if he felt the awkwardness too.

“Ben, alright, everything OK?

“Errrr, yea yea, fine.”

Fine? Just fine. That’s the response you get from someone who isn’t fine. He was in a right mardy.

And Skater Jane was quiet also, even though I could see that she’d finished her second coffee, which usually meant she would be awake, ready to peck someone’s head.

I went upstairs and asked Donna to have a mooch around the kitchen and pretend that she was looking for something, I wanted to now if she sensed the stillness also.

So she did, “Hiya Jane, I’m looking for a little knife to cut lemons, ours has disappeared, again.”

Unfortunately, Jane was a little too quick with a response, Donna needed to spend a bit longer in the weird atmosphere.

“Yea mate, take mine until you find yours.”

“Thanks Jane, I’ll just wash it.”

Donna spent a few minutes pretending to wash the knife, then reported back to me.

“Yea, I see what you mean, it’s so strange, it’s just silent.”

“Right. I’ll liven them up, and I‘ll try to find out what’s going on as well.”

I started on the curry oil and struck up a conversation with Lucia.

“Hey Lucia, me and Donna have been to Spain, years ago though.”

“Oh yea, whereabouts?”

“Benidorm, yonks ago. Does that count as Spain?”

“Haha, I suppose it depends who you ask.”

“I’m just messing. But Spain is a beautiful country. And nice people as well.”

“Yes, we’re a friendly lot, gracias.”

During this attempt at a conversation, Ben and Jane said nothing.

Then Lucia asked if she could go to the toilet, “Yea of course, you don’t have to ask.”

When she left for the loo, I tried to drag Ben and Jane into the chat, “Have you been to Spain Jane?”

And rather bluntly Jane replied, “That’s the third time she’s been to the toilet.”

“Nowt wrong with that Jane, maybe she’s nervous, first day and all that.”

“Maybe.”

Maybe I could soften Ben.

“Hey Ben, did you hear how Lucia said ‘gracias’, she pronounces the ‘C’ as a ‘TH’, I always thought it was pronounced as an ’S’. Grasias! Grathias!.”

At that, Tina Terminator marched into the kitchen, her little arms swinging from side to side and she disappeared into the corner, looking for side plates.

Ben was well educated so he knew about the ‘TH’ and ’S’ pronunciation, “Errr, yea, in South America the ‘C’ is pronounced as an ’S’ but the errr, Spanish, yea, they pronounce the ‘C’as ‘TH’. Grasias and Grathias.”

However, Tina Terminator heard this conversation and immediately put Ben right, “No Ben, the Spanish are short tongued, that’s why they use the ‘TH’ sound a lot.”

“Errr, what? All Spanish people are short tongued, that’s mental, no they’re not.”

“Yes they are. I should know, I speak Spanish.”

“Errrr, no, just because you speak a bit of Spanish, yea, that doesn’t mean that you know about the anatomy of a whole nation.”

“I speak a lot of Spanish, and I’m telling you, they’re all short tongued. Now do your work, I’m too busy to talk to you.”

“Err, but it was you who started talking to me yea.”

But Tina didn’t hear him, she had left the kitchen, she was off.

Lucia arrived back to the kitchen and continued with the prep list Ben had given her.

I didn’t have time to focus on this kitchen discord, every few minutes I was handed the phone because PR Michelle was pestering me for recipes for magazines.

“My favourite cake to eat at Easter Michelle? I don’t have one.”

“Just make something up Andrew, then send me a recipe.”

After another quiet lunch I just knew I had to find out what the problem with Lucia was, Ben and Jane were acting so strange.

I collared Jane, she had no filters, she would tell me, “Jane, what’s wrong with Lucia, she’s a nice person, why you and Ben being off with her?”

“Listen mate, yea, she’s just not good enough. You’ve been in and out of the kitchen so you probably haven’t noticed, but she’s all over the place.”

“Really?”

“Yea really. Ben gave her some easy stuff to do, ya know, first day and all that. But we’re jumping in and taking over ‘cos she can’t get it right.”

“Oh right, I didn’t realise.”

“So yea mate, we’re not happy, she’s not good enough for the restaurant. She just can’t cut the mustard.”

“That’s so weird Jane, she has loads of experience as well.”

And at that, something struck me. It wasn’t that Ben and Jane didn’t like Lucia, they just didn’t want her bringing our standards down. I hadn’t realised how proud they were, but they were basically saying that they didn’t want to work with someone who could jeopardise what we were doing.

The next morning, Lucia came to see me to let me know that she would work until the end of the week and then she would leave.

“It’s just not for me Andrew.”

So now we were back to the beginning, we still needed to find someone to replace Ben.

Plus, we still hadn’t managed to get the Brie ice cream dish on the menu.

Right, thanks for reading this and catch us next week to find out what we do about a replacement.

Donna and Andrew

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, Donny Trump will be your personal butler for the whole day.

Hiya. Here we go again, joy and fun.

You’ve joined us at the end of November 2009, just as the X Factor finalists were getting to number one with, You Are Not Alone.

And finally, we were getting requests for Christmas bookings, which felt a bit last minute, maybe every other restaurant in London was fully booked.

Christmas was always a strange one for us, if an office group fancied celebrating, and only one of them was vegetarian, the other seven meat eaters would be reluctant to visit a vegetarian restaurant. Remember, this was seventeen years ago. So we rarely attracted big groups, which to be honest, was quite nice.

And vegetarian food isn’t very Christmassy is it? No it isn’t. Christmas food is turkey, goose, pigs in blankets, ham, duck fat potatoes and roast pork . See!

OK, we could squeeze chestnuts onto the list, but that’s not a lot to work with really.

Oh yea, we could have done a nut loaf, why not eh, every other veggie restaurant was doing one.

Or Brussels sprouts, yes, we could have done a delicious, boffy sprout soufflé.

Ahhh, a vegetable wellington, AKA, a vegetable pie. Whoppee do!

Oh no, how about a cranberry and lentil loaf?

Merry Christmas!

If you reckon we deserve a coffee for writing this, that’s the Coffee button. It’ll cost £3 mind.

Coffee

So you see, it starts to become quite errrr, vegetarian. Dishes like that are not exactly shouting luxurious Christmas, and they’ve been done to death.

But we were being asked for Christmas menus, so we had to please. We came up with a quick plan, we took a few items from our main menu, copied and pasted them over, added a glass of Champagne and the mention of Christmas crackers, and there we go. The spattering of groups we did get seemed happy, and let’s be honest, they were more interested in getting tiddly and gossiping about others from the office.

However, we needed to give this Christmas thing some thought, it was going to happen next year, so we needed to get our heads around it. But how could we be seasonal and Christmassy without carving a joint of tofu and drizzling cranberry sauce over it.

I chatted with Ben and Jane in the kitchen, did they have any ideas, how could we become more seasonal and Christmassy.

Ben did his looky into the air thing, Jane went quiet, I waited. Seven seconds passed and I was becoming impatient. But luckily, Skater Jane had a suggestion.

“I know we can’t do Christmas food like turkey mate, but can’t we do what you always say, be inspired by elements of Christmas?”

And this suggestion prompted Ben to stop staring into the air and chip in with something, “Errr, yea, or errr, things that happen at Christmas yea.”

Jane became a little excited, “Yea, I know, like, remember those tins of biscuits your Gran used to give you at Christmas! The shortbread selection, you know, with a Scottish highland scene on the front.”

Ben frowned which meant he didn’t understand. I didn’t have a Granny but I knew the tins, every supermarket had them in at Christmas. There was always a stag on the front and some kind of tartan pattern. And this was because, obviously, Christmas was invented in Scotland.

I liked this, “Yea, good idea Jane, shortbread something or other. Yea, we can work with that. Shortbread and Christmas, what dish can we squeeze out of that?”

The three of us went quiet as the cogs turned. Seven seconds passed and I became impatient.

But that Scottish theme stuck with me. I started to picture a wealthy Scottish land owner, the Laird of the manor, it was him who owned the land and lochs on the front of that biscuit tin. And up in a turret of his Scottish castle, he’s sat in a rich, purple velvet armchair, and he’s wearing an emerald green smoking jacket. As he sits and looks over his land, he smokes a cigar and sips a peaty Whisky. Then he slowly reaches to a an ornate silver tray, and takes a chocolate truffle for himself.

And that became the inspiration for a dish, a dish which we could get on the menu pretty quickly, a dish which wasn’t a bloody trifle or a heavy pudding, yet hinted at Christmas. No waiting until next year, let’s get it done now.

I ran the idea past Ben and Jane.

“Sick!”

“Cool!”

But first I needed to tell Donna, and Google something.

I explained the dish idea to Donna, she liked it, but had one reservation, “It sounds great, but cigars? Have you Googled it?”

“Just about to now.”

After a quick search on the internet to make sure we didn’t kill anyone, it was confirmed that the dish would be OK. You’ll see why.

So that posh Scottish geezer, who didn’t actually exist, but was eating choccies, drinking Whisky and smoking a fat cigar, gave rise to the following dish.

Dark Chocolate Truffle Marquise, Drambuie Gel and Whipped Tobacco Cream

The Drambuie was chosen because, although it is Whisky based, it contains heather honey and spices, a nice Christmassy match to the dish.

And what does whipped tobacco cream taste of?

Well, it was actually a bit faffy to get right. Cigars needed to be added to cream and heated, but then it wouldn’t whip, so a few visits to the drawing board, then we were there.

So imagine whipped cream which is a very pale beige colour. It gives a slight agreeable sting to the back of the throat and has a mild smoky flavour. Sounds odd, but it went very well with the sweet Drambuie and rich chocolate.

Did people like it? This was the question we asked Donna, Tina and Sophia, and it seemed that people were blown away by it.

But Jim and Jean thought it was just too weird.

So Christmas was steady, a few larger groups, but not the usual paper hats and streamer types. They were all in the Jack’s restaurant next door.

And on one particular morning, Tina, who had obviously been thinking about this way too much, had a question for us.

“Why do you eat cranberry sauce with turkey?”

Now, this was a good question, and not one which we would have normally asked ourselves, it was just the way it was, and you never questioned it.

I answered Tina as best as I could, “Well Tina, at one time, here in good old England, we never ate turkey at Christmas, it was either goose or pork. But over time Tina, we decided that we should copy the American people and start eating dry tasteless turkey, to celebrate Christmas. And because the Americans served it with cranberry sauce, so did we.”

“But it’s just jam. I eat it with my dumplings.”

I noticed Ben flinch when he heard Tina mention the dumplings.

“Yea, I suppose it is a bit jammy. Not sure why they chose cranberries to make a jammy sauce, they could have used almost anything. Good point Tina.”

“Well, I think jam with turkey is stupid.”

No arguing with Tina Terminator.

Tina left the kitchen and Skater Jane agreed, “It does sound stupid doesn’t it? I mean, when you say it like Tina did.”

Ben was nodding, “Err, my folks don’t eat turkey, they prefer goose at Christmas.”

And a question popped into my busy mind, “Hang on, at what other time of the year do we actually eat cranberry sauce?”

Seven seconds passed and I became impatient.

Ben managed to come up with a reply, “Errr, yea yea, I can’t remember the last time I ate it.”

But Jane pepped up, “Hey guys, yes, with deep fried Brie. Remember? Every boozer had it on the menu? I loved it.”

I remembered it well, “Yes Jane, you’re right. Remember when you cut into the crispy crumb shell and the Brie oozed out?”

And suddenly Ben remembered, “Yea, sick.”

This gave me another idea, “We should put deep fried Brie on the menu, you know what I mean, like a take on it.”

But Ben was concerned about this, I could tell by that familiar little frown on his forehead.

“Oi, frowny face, what’s wrong?”

“Errrrr, yea, but we’ve just put a new dessert on the menu yea, and there’s quite a few people booked in yea, because of Christmas. Do we have time to start on a new dish?”

“Yea you’re right actually Ben, but it could be something to work on in the new year.”

For some strange reason, Ben didn’t reply to that, but Jane did.

“Yea, like a new year project. But we can’t just put deep fried Brie on the menu, people have seen that before. What you thinking mate?”

I pondered on this, Jane was right, what was the point of coming to Vanilla Black for deep fried Brie when you could get that somewhere else. Even supermarkets peddled that stuff.

I zoned out for a few minutes.

“Ben, Jane, listen, deep fried Brie is very hot, it’s been in the fryer. So what’s the opposite of very hot?”

Ben first, “Errr, yea cool, errr, cold, yea cold Brie.”

Jane shrugged.

“OK, so the opposite of very hot is very cold, or even frozen, get me?”

Blank but intrigued looks.

“Brie ice cream. We could do Brie ice cream. What do you think?”

Ben liked this, “Yes, that’s actually mental.”

Jane liked this, “Yea mate, that’s wicked.”

I ran the idea past Donna, “Ah, now I like that. Didn’t Heston Blumenthal do a bacon and egg ice cream a couple of years back?”

“Yea he did. But do you think it’s too much. Is it overkill?”

“No. Do it, we have to be known for being different.”

“Right, we’ll work on it for the new year.”

However, cheese ice creams weren’t too popular in 2009, so finding a rough recipe to adapt would be tricky. That’s the joy of being ahead of your time. You didn’t realise that did you?

“Ben, Jane, we need to make Brie ice cream. But it won’t be easy, the fat content will make it soft but we need to get the consistency right, we need to do a lot of testing. Have a think tonight and we can chat about it tomorrow.”

The next morning Ben arrived a little earlier, not as early as Tina though. He asked if he could have a word, great, he has a recipe for Brie ice cream, this would save a lot of time. But he didn’t have a recipe, he had something else to tell me.

“Errrr, yea, yea I errr, I’m leaving yea. I errr, yea, not straight away, I’ll wait until you have someone to replace me yea. But yea, it’s err, time to move on.”

As always, thanks for reading this, and catch you next week.

Donna and Andrew

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, your next grocery delivery will contain a free jar of sun dried tomatoes.

Hello to you. Welcome back to the story of how to keep a restaurant from going bankrupt.

It’s November 2009 and every other restaurant was gearing up for the December madness. We weren’t, because the Christmas rush was unlikely to come anywhere near us.

So to us, it didn’t matter, we just cracked on, hoping that the ever so slight increase in trade would continue.

Join us on a particular Friday, we liked Fridays, it was the end of the week to us, because, at the time, we didn’t open on Saturdays. Why not? Basically because the restaurant next door didn’t open on Saturdays, and the guy who owned it told us not to bother as this was the legal district and nobody was around.

And because we were still quite new to London, Friday was the day we talked about where we would go and what we would do over the weekend. And for some reason, Ben seemed to have all the recommendations.

“Ben, where can I get some cheap retro clothes? Camden?”

“Errrr, no, no way, Brick Lane, loads of places down there yea.”

Skater Jane would need her info, “Cocktails Ben, where can I take my mate for a good cocktail?”

“Err, ye yea, Milk & Honey in Soho, yea. Pricey though.”

“Cheers fella, we’ll just have one drink then.”

Then Tina burst into the kitchen, “The delivery man is here, I’ll send him down.”

The three of us were a bit baffled, but then Ben remembered, “Errr, yea, I remember, the order was short on Wednesday yea, so they said they would send the rest the next day.”

“Well that’s bollocks Ben, that means it should have been here yesterday, It’s Friday today.”

“Err yea, it is.”

At that, the delivery guy used his back to open the kitchen door as his arms were busy carrying stuff. Then, when he was in the room, he turned and faced us.

He used to annoy me, always had a daft grin on his face. Drop that grin mate, you delivered a short delivery on Wednesday and the rest of the order is late.

“Hiya, got your sugar and flour.”

I had to have a dig, “Great, I can see why it took so long, flour and sugar eh, tricky ingredients to get hold of.”

But he had a ducks back and and that remark trickled straight off it.

“Hey, I meant to ask you lot, where can I get large grain couscous?”

Ben looked into the air as if he was thinking about it, Jane shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. But I was intrigued.

“What makes you think we would know?”

“Well, because you’re a vegetarian restaurant.”

Ben noticed that I was starting to boil so jumped in, “Errr, yea cool, Wholefoods, yea I’ve seen it in Wholefoods.”

“Great,” and off he went with his cheery grin.

“He annoys me. He’s such a tosser, why, just why. Why would we know where to buy the stupid couscous? What’s vegetarian got to do with couscous? Maybe I should ask him where to buy hay from because he’s such a donkey.”

Jane stuck up for him, because she always sided with the bloody underdog, “Maybe he’s asked every restaurant he’s been in today mate, not just us.”

“He hasn’t, I know he hasn’t. He just wants to annoy me. Next week he’ll be asking us where he can get dreadlocks because we’re a vegetarian restaurant.”

“Ha, I don’t think so mate, I don’t think he means any harm.”

Luckily for Jane, she was saved from a one hour shouty lecture about stereotypes because Tina burst into the kitchen and barked some information.

“Guys, nobody for lunch but twelve tonight.” Then she turned and sped off.

Ben frowned, “Err, yea, when I looked at the diary this morning, errr, there were only six booked in.”

Ben was right, so between us we quickly came to the decision that we needed to do a bit more prep. Not too much though, we weren’t open the next day so we didn’t want to waste anything.

Ten minutes later, Donna arrived to the kitchen, “Listen, we’ve gone to eighteen tonight, just to give you a heads up.”

And by the time Donna reached the top of the stairs, Tina Terminator was just finishing a phone call, in her front of house voice, “Yes of course, we’ll see you at seven thirty.”

“Donna, another table of four at seven thirty.”

“Wow! I wonder what’s going on. I’ll let the kitchen know.”

And when she did let us know, a discussion started. Myself, Ben, Jane and Donna decided that if any more bookings came in, we should just take them. The most we had done on one shift was twenty four, and it was a lot for us. But we knew that we would be OK because even if we take a few more, there would always be no shows or cancellations.

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Cksjvldnfh

Then Tina boomed into the kitchen, “Guys, it’s crazy, I’ve just booked in another four and a two.”

But before we could answer, Tina cocked her head to one side as if she was listening to something.

“It’s the phone, I’ll get it,” and before anyone could catch hold of her, she was out the door and thundering upstairs.

And when she came back, it turns out that we’d gone from six, to thirty, in a few hours.

Someone had hit the panic button, they must have, because we were panicking. But it happened again, Tina’s hyper focused senses heard the phone ringing upstairs and she was off.

“No, Tina wait.”

On her return, “She triumphantly announced, “Thirty two. It’s gonna be fun guys.”

More prep, more glasses polished, more tables to fully lay, more napkins to fold and more panicking to do.

Tina remained positive, “Stop worrying, Sophia will be in to help us soon. You all worry too much.”

But when Donna reminded Tina that Sophia was off tonight because it was her birthday, her face changed.

“WHAT? Tonight. Oh shit, I forgot about that. Donna, I’ll get more glasses, we need to move quicker.”

The first table wasn’t due in until 6:30pm, we opened at 6pm, so that gave us some extra time. And the last table was at 8:30pm, which wasn’t too bad as they were fairly well spaced out. IF, they all stuck to their allocated times.

And for the first time since we opened, and because it was now necessary, Tina and Donna allocated themselves a section to run. Previously, because it was so quiet, it was just a case of whoever arrived at a diner’s table, took the order.

So Donna took the ‘Big Section’ and Tina took the ‘Raised Area’. The raised area was towards the back of the restaurant, it was up two little steps and bordered with a low partition wall. Couples liked this area because it was a bit more intimate.

The first table arrived at 6:45pm, so yes, late, which means the amount of people is concentrated into a smaller time period. That also meant that Donna and Tina were stood waiting from 6pm, opening time, being very apprehensive.

Also, we had no EPOS system at the time, we couldn’t afford one.

An explanation. EPOS is basically a method for putting your order into a computerised system and it sends that order to the kitchen. It saves the front of house team running to the kitchen. These days it can even be done on the smart phone.

This meant that Tina and Donna had to take every hand written order down stairs to the kitchen, then run back up. As well as greeting diners as they arrived to reception, making drinks, collecting and delivering meals to tables, answering the phone, clearing tables and taking orders.

And I couldn’t help because the kitchen would also be getting slammed.

Kitchen door bursts open, “Check on, table of four.”

I pipe goats cheese and tarragon mousse into a ring to shape it.

I slice the beetroot terrine, wasabi cream gets a quick whip to lift it.

Ben loads a blue cheese pudding onto a tray, then in the oven.

Jane drains the red wine soaked grapes and loads the pickled apple purée ready to heat.

Door bursts open again.

“Check on, table of four and two twos.”

“Hang on, weren’t they supposed to be here at 7:30pm?”

“Yes, but try telling them that.”

And it continued. For the next hour everyone turned up, no cancellations or no shows.

And the restaurant floor was thumping, happy people, lots of buzz and lots of chatter. Then the next bookings arrived, more buzz, more chatter.

Donna and Tina were juggling way too much, greeting, seating, chatting and delivering. And usually it’s drinks which is the most time consuming. Imagine, a table of four asks for a G&T but no lemon, lime instead, a white wine and soda, a vodka and lime and a bottle of Peroni. Doesn’t sound like much, but drinks have to be measured and put together correctly, they all go in different glasses, then loaded onto a tray.

That task is much more time consuming than taking someone to their table, or delivering two main courses to diners.

But fortunately, this particular evening was bottle of wine night. Much easier, much less faff, just a case of making sure the correct glass was on the table, taking a bottle of wine over, open it, stick some in a glass and walk away.

On no, hang on, you had to put a little wine in a glass for the person who ordered it to do a check.

“Yes, it’s very nice, thank you.”

Sorry mate, you’re not checking the wine to see if you like it, you’re checking to make sure it’s not corked.

And Tina was moving like a Tasmanian Devil, spinning between her tables, wizzing to the dumb waiter to collect plates and meeting customers at reception with her front of house tone, “Good evening, do you have a reservation?”

Then she was off again, gently strolling past diners, but upping herself into fifth gear when when she was out of view, making up precious seconds.

Racing down the stairs to give an order to the kitchen, then pelting back up the stairs, slowing down when she was in customer’s view.

And with a one minute lull, Tina calmly popped up the two steps to the raised area to have a quick check on her tables. Satisfied, and knowing that Donna needed help in her section, she turned, and gathering a little more speed, hopped back down the two steps to the ‘Big Section’.

And then………………….she fell flat on her face.

Yup, right in front of the the whole restaurant.

She was in a full, flat out position in the middle of the floor, arms out in front of her.

And immediately, kind diners jumped out of their seats to help her up, but that wasn’t happening.

This was Tina Terminator, she was on the floor for all of half a second, when she suddenly bounced back up to her feet and stood upright.

“I’m OK, it’s nothing.”

She brushed herself down a little and made her way to the drinks area, nothing to see here.

And apart from that incident, which was never spoken of, ever, the evening was a brilliant success.

Thanks for sticking with us and catch you next week.

Andrew and Donna

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Hello to you. You really are the best.

Right, straight in. We were doing fairly well at the restaurant, nowhere near where we should be, but paying suppliers was becoming easier.

Maybe this was down to Michelle, our PR lady, or was it simply because we had been around a bit longer. Who knows. If we did know the reason for the increase in trade, we would do it more often. But Public Relations must have been helping. Thanks Michelle.

And funny that you should bring this up, because one afternoon, Michelle called us.

“Hi Donna, how do you and Andrew feel about being on a TV programme?”

“Hiya Michelle, that sounds good. What would be involved?”

“Well, they want to bring someone along to the kitchen and talk about vegetables. That’s all I know at the moment.”

“OK, I’ll let Andrew know, I’m sure he’d love talking to someone in the kitchen, you know how he likes to talk.”

“Haha, that’s true. When I have more details I’ll call you back. But for now I’ll let them know you’re happy to go ahead.”

Donna came to the kitchen to let myself, Ben and Jane know the good news.

“Listen, Michelle has been on the phone to ask if we want to be on TV.”

Ben jumped in immediately, “Sick! Of course we do yea.”

And Jane was intrigued, “Shit, of course we do. What’s it about?”

Donna explained, “I’m not completely sure, but they want to bring someone into the kitchen to talk about vegetables. Andrew, I thought you would be excited about this, you haven’t said anything.”

“Yea, I’m just thinking about the last time. Remember, the bastards had stuff everywhere. And they were here for hours.”

Skater Jane was a bit lost, “I wasn’t here then, what happened?”

Ben brought her up to speed, “Errrr, yea, it was mental. We couldn’t walk across the floor yea, cables were everywhere. And err, yea, we had to do things like ten times.”

“Ah mate, sounds painful, good publicity though.”

And that wound me up, “No Jane, we never saw it, in fact it probably didn’t even go on TV.”

“Pack of bastards. I didn’t realise it was that bad.”

Donna went to leave the kitchen but first let us know that Michelle would call back with more details.

I could tell that Skater Jane was eager to hear more. She hadn’t experienced it last time, it probably sounded exciting to her.

“Mate, was there like lights and microphones in the kitchen?”

Ben beat me to it, “Err, yea, everywhere, above us yea, in our faces. Now it’s coming back to me. I errr, don’t think it’s a good idea.”

But even with these negative responses, Jane was pumped, she liked the idea.

“Are you gonna do it Andrew? It would be pretty cool.”

“I’d rather not, it’s a lot of effort for a thirty second clip of a pan. We probably wouldn’t even get a mention. And trust me Jane, it’s a pain.”

Before Jane could peck my head anymore, Donna came to the kitchen to hand me the phone.

“It’s Michelle. See what she says. I don’t mind doing it but it’ll probably be kitchen based, so up to you.”

I took the phone to the office. I always found that being in the office during the day was a bit odd. I would often be in there late at night, after service had finished, to write cheques out and go though invoices. But I never had time during the day, I was in the kitchen, preparing and cooking food. There are a number of restaurant owners who do very little on the restaurant floor or in the kitchen, but we couldn’t afford the luxury of extra team members to replace us.

Plus, the office was horrible. It was around 1.5 metres wide and 3 metres long, or five foot be ten foot. And the hot water boiler lived in there, so it was always humid and sticky. And because we didn’t use it very often, it looked pretty much how it did when we moved in.

“Hi Michelle, go on, tell me, what do the nuisances want?”

“Well, it’s actually quite interesting. It’s a series about people who are food fussy, you know, won’t eat lots of certain of foods and live on chips. And this one is about a woman who’s vegetarian but doesn’t like vegetables.”

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Coffee

“Oh yea, that is interesting actually. What do they want us to do?”

“They want you to show her some vegetables in the kitchen and how to prepare and cook them. You know, try to change her mind about vegetables.”

“I like this. Yea, tell them we’ll do it.”

I ran upstairs to tell Donna. She thought that my u-turn was funny.

I then ran into the kitchen to tell Ben and Jane.

Ben shook his head, but said nothing.

Skater Jane looked surprised, “But mate, you said these people were a pain in the arse. You said they weren’t worth bothering with.”

Now I felt stupid, I had to reverse everything I had said about TV production companies.

“Well yea, I know I said those things, but they’re not all like that Jane. You and Ben are just too negative, too quick to shoot people down. You need to be more open.”

Ben was shaking his head, “Yea yea, too negative. Don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Jane was confused, “I don’t remember saying anything about them mate. I’m interested to see how it goes. I don’t want to be on the telly though, I’d look right daft.”

Ben was still shaking his head, “Errr, don’t worry yea, you’ll be stood here for hours and you might get your hand in a shot.”

The production people sent an email with some timings for us and asked us to have some unusual vegetables to hand. So I rang our veg supplier and added to our regular order, a celeriac, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes, and a mooli.

On the day, we arrived at 8am, the production people wanted to get started quickly. We even beat Tina Terminator this day. A few minutes later, two guys arrived. They were in their early thirties, dressed casually, and quite bouncy.

I expected more people, “Hi guys, just the two of you?”

“Hi, yes, just us two lovely people, Tom and Jerry, at your service.”

These chaps were so, not funny, this actually made them funny.

Donna stayed on the restaurant floor and I took T and J down to the kitchen.

I helped them rearrange the benches and showed them where they could plug in their equipment. If I left them to it, they would unplug the fridges.

Within ten minutes, the kitchen was looking like the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Ben was gonna be in a right huff. And then, Donna brought two ladies to the kitchen.

One of them looked about thirty years of age, the other looked like her mother. And just by looking at them, you could tell that they were incredibly nervous.

But without introductions, Tom and Jerry knew who they were, and rushed over.

“Hi Beverly, and who’s this, your sister? Hahahaha.”

Beverly nervously put out her hand and hunched her shoulders in an attempt to make herself look a little smaller.

“Hello Richard, hello Theo. No no, this is me Mum.”

“Well hi Mum, pleased to meet you. And do you have a name?”

“Hello love, yes, I’m Barbara. I’m here to help calm our Beverly’s nerves.”

Richard ushered them out of the kitchen so that they could finish setting up, and getting in the way.

And then, oh no, Ben and Jane arrived to work. Skater Jane’s eyes widened at what she saw.

“Jesus lads, am I in the right place?”

“Ben shook his head, “Errrrr, yea yea, mental.”

I showed the bowl of vegetables to Jerry, “Ahhh, yea, cool, that’s perfect.”

Then Tom took over, “Errr, it’s Ben and Jane isn’t it? Guys, can you just go and work at the end of the bench, just give us some space yea.”

As they took their knives to the end of the bench I heard Jane mumbling, “I’ll smack him in the mouth.”

“Right, Andrew, when I bring her in, what I want you to do is this, show Beverly some vegetables, a couple of easy ones first. And as you show her them, ask if she knows what they are. Then, show her some of these fancy vegetables and ask her if she knows what they are.”

“To be fair Richard, not many people would know the names of these particular vegetables. Won’t that make her look a bit daft?”

He put his hand on my shoulder as if to reassure me, “Don’t worry Andrew, it’s just entertainment.”

And I just knew that Jane would be annoyed about this. I certainly was. I glanced over, and yes, she was scowling. Always looking out for the underdog.

For the next four hours, as Jane and Ben belted through the prep list, Tom and Jerry filmed Beverly looking dismayed at the vegetables I handed to her, and her mother stood in the wings for moral support.

Occasionally they would stop and push Beverly to ask a question, “Ask Andrew how to prepare that vegetable and what it could be used for.”

“Err, Andrew, that looks funny, I’ve never seen one of those before, it looks like a Martian. What do you do with that?”

“This is kohlrabi Beverly. You can peel and roast it, but I like it raw. It’s actually quite nice in coleslaw.”

Beverly screwed up her face, “I don’t like coleslaw.”

Tom and Jerry loved this, I could see Tom smiling and moving the camera closer.

After hours of this we gave Beverly and Barbara a complimentary meal in the restaurant because they were lovely grounded people. Salt of the earth they were. Richard and Theo said they were too buy to stay and told us they would be in touch.

Afterwards, Beverly and her mum left and thanked us about three hundred times, and then rushed off to get a train back to Halifax.

Ben, myself and Jane put the kitchen back together.

And for the next two days, Skater Jane ranted on and on about how she hated Richard and Theo for making poor Barbara look small.

“Donna, those two bastards, who did they think they were.”

“Tina, did you speak to them? They were awful. They were so up themselves.”

And Ben and I zoned out as she told us how it was pompous bastards like this that end up running the country.

“We should never do any TV stuff again. Who do they think they are? And they just took over. Go and work at the end of the bench. Chop quietly. I’m telling ya lads, if I see them in the street they’re getting a smack in the chops.”

None of us saw that TV programme.

However, Jane’s mother contacted her a couple of weeks later to say that she had seen the show on some random channel. And apparently, for all that chew on, there was a one minute clip of Beverly screwing her face up at kohlrabi and celeriac.

So Jane started again, “All that so they could make a crap TV show and ridicule people. Less than a minute for all that. Boils my piss it does. I’m telling ya, if I see them in……………”

OK thanks for reading this. Join us next week when Skater Jane calms down.

Andrew and Donna

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Hi, how you doing?

Right, this week, amongst a few other things, we’re going to tell you about a very important person and their role in the restaurant. But who is it?

Well without building up the suspense, or dragging it out for ten minutes, the answer is, the Kitchen Porter.

Yes, the Kitchen Porter, the Washer Upper, the Dish Washer, the Plongeur.

In the York restaurant, if you recall, we had Bud and Cak Boy. Both were great.

However, London was different. Imagine if you will, you’re seventeen or eighteen and you live in a little town in the south of Italy. You’re a bit bored and you fancy travelling, maybe spending some time in London would be nice. But you don’t have much cash and your parents refuse to help because they’re a bit skint also.

But you don’t give up, you ask around and you hear from a friend in the next town that their brother spent a summer in London and managed to get himself a job washing up in a kitchen. This little job paid for his accommodation and some beer money, and he didn’t have to worry too much about learning the language as he was only washing pots and pans.

Now, before Brexit, you would have packed your knapsack and jumped on the cheapest Ryanair flight and landed in London a few hours later, ready to start looking for a job. Since Brexit, you can still do the same thing, but without the job part.

You arrive and ask around a few Italian acquaintances and one of them knows of a job going in a place which they used to work at. Perfect.

“Yes my friend, it’s a great place to work, the job is easy, and they give you food. But listen, whatever you do, don’t tell them you’re only here for the summer.”

“Why not?”

“Because my friend, if you tell them you’re only here for six months, they’ll choose someone else. Imagine if Naples FC were about to sign a new striker but he told them he only wanted to stay a few months. They would tell him to do one.”

“Thank you my friend, now I understand.”

OK, we’re generalising a little here, some people actually came to London to wash up until they retired.

But you get the gist? Many young people arrived in London with the idea to spend the summer there, meet a few people, learn a bit of English and earn a bit of cash.

Great for them, but it was a nuisance if you’re trying to run a business. They learn the job, become part of the team, and then they leave.

Anyway, our first Kitchen Porter was a little chap from northern Italy. Pietro. I liked him, he told me lots of stories about his country, it saved taking a trip there. He had only been with us for a few days and he was picking the job up, but very slowly.

Skater Jane liked him, she thought he was ‘canny’.

Ben didn’t like him. Don’t get us wrong, he didn’t beat him or anything. And nor did Ben didn’t even say anything mean to the lad. But I could tell that Ben just didn’t click with him.

“Ben, why don’t you like him, he’s a nice lad?”

“Errr, yea yea, he annoys me, yea. He says his favourite band in the world is Nickleback, but, errr, yea, he can’t even name any of the band members.”

Skater Jane frowned, “That’s no reason to dislike him mate.”

“Errr, yes it is.”

But little Pietro didn’t stay with us for much longer, maybe another week. He said that the work made him very sleepy. He went and we never saw him again.

So as usual we put an advert on Gumtree for a kitchen porter and waited. And because this was pre Brexit, a couple of hundred CVs came in.

“Donna, have you seen how many applications have come in? I don’t have time to look through all of these, I’ve got a prep list to work through.”

“I know, I saw them all come in. What are you going to do?”

“Dunno. Even if I invite twenty for interview, half of them won’t turn up. It just takes so long.”

I mooched around for a while, then I came up with an excellent idea.

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“I’ll take the first person that sent an application. That’s it, sorted.”

So I went to the top of the email list and asked a guy called Christophe to come along for an interview.

I went back to the kitchen and told Ben and Jane that even though nobody had yet turned up for interview, I knew who would be our new kitchen porter.

Skater Jane was confused, “So who is it then?”

“The first person who sent an email. Christophe.”

Ben highlighted a problem, “Errr, yea yea, but what if he’s not suitable?”

“Don’t worry Ben, I’ll check his music knowledge.”

And fortunately Christophe was great. He turned up and with a smile and a handshake. What more do you need?

His English wasn’t great but that didn’t matter, he was willing, and that was a rarity.

“So Christophe, when can you start? Quand?”

“Maintenant.”

Good job I listened to my French teacher at school because I knew that Christophe wanted to start now. Thanks Mrs. Smith.

I laughed at his eagerness. After a couple of minutes swapping words between each other it turned out that Christophe had only arrived in London the day before. So I told him to enjoy the rest of his day and start the next day

He was happy about this and he gave a sentence which he’d obviously been practising, “I want to learn.”

I told him he would need a bank account and National Insurance number, but somehow, he knew this already. We shook hands, he left and agreed to join us the next day.

And he did just that. He arrived early and I gave him a tour. “Those are the toilets, fire exits there, that’s Tina, hi Donna, that’s Sophia, she’s very tall.”

As we walked around he explained that he understood most of what I was saying, he just couldn’t find the English words to reply.

“But I will learn. I want to learn.”

This lad was determined.

However, he explained that he had tried to get a bank account the day before but none of the banks would help because he didn’t have an address.

But I had an idea. I would ask someone else who had come to the UK and needed a bank account some years earlier. Tina Terminator. She was an expert on, well, everything.

“Tina, are there any banks that will give you an account even if you don’y have an address?”

Tina was on rapid fire, “Yes, Lloyds Bank, they’ll do it.”

Sophia was about to confirm this but Tina stopped her, “Yes, definitely Lloyds.”

Christophe was amazing. He was everything you could want in a kitchen porter.

Within a few hours he knew where everything lived, mixing bowls underneath the bench, frying pans above the stove, utensils on the self.

But Christophe was maybe a little too good.

“Christophe slow down, we don’t need these pans until later.”

“No, it is important. I must push.”

“Christophe, this water is too hot, put some cold in, you’ll cook your hands.”

“No, I must push myself.”

He was nearly running around the kitchen. He would wash and dry a batch of items, bowls, ladles, pans, and carry them around the kitchen in a circuit, dropping them off in their homes as he went.

And we liked him. As his English improved, and our French didn’t, we could joke with him. He wanted to know every swear word possible and he was keen to learn English slang.

Skater Jane helped him with a lot of this.

When he had worked through his mountain of pots, did he stand and lean against the sink? No, he would weave around the kitchen with a brush, sweeping up any stray bits he could find.

If you gave hime any praise he shrugged it off.

“Hey Christophe, you are very fast.”

“No, I must improve.”

And as the weeks went past, we could chat with Christophe more and more. He would engage in conversation while he was blasting through his jobs, desperate to practice his English.

It was as if he had always been part of the team, he gelled with everyone. Even Tina Terminator liked him.

“Yes, he’s very fast. Well, he was a bit slow on Tuesday.”

Jane chatted with him about France, Ben discussed music with him, and when there were a few quiet hours in the afternoon, he would help me to replace light bulbs and fix things that people had broken.

And when the summer ended, Christophe told us he was going back to France.

On his last day, he brought in a bottle of Champagne for us which his parents had paid for. And he showed us a text message from them, which when translated, was a thank you for looking after their son.

Then Christophe was gone.

We missed Christophe. I missed Christophe a lot. But this was London, I needed to get used to people coming and going.

Right lovely people, catch you next week and thanks for reading.

Donna and Andrew

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, you will be sent a complimentary box of choccies.

Hello to you and welcome back.

OK, it’s October 2009 and the UK is looking pretty grim. As the credit crunch took hold, a financial depression gripped the world. Oh yea, and Swine Flu caused the deaths of several hundred people.

All the news headlines were telling tales of woe, no economic growth and predictions telling us that the recession was going to drag on.

But when it came to us, trade was improving, ever so slightly. We had been open in London for a year and a half, but that notion that the streets were paved with gold was was certainly a myth.

However, the headlines didn’t mean a great deal to us. You see, in the previous year we could be open for three days and not see a single customer. But in 2009, things were a little better. So to us, we were booming. We had taken on a new team member for front of house and…………

Remember that curtain we bought from Ikea? The one we used to hide one side of the restaurant so we didn’t appear empty when diners walked in? Well, we moved it back a bit.

Yup, I stood on a chair, took out the hooks from either side of the wall and passed them down to Donna. We then decided where to re hang it, and I put the hooks back in the wall in a new position.

This curtain was suspended using net curtain wire. Oh hang on, posh people probably don’t know what that is. OK, it’s a wire which has a little ‘give’ in it, and a little silver hook is put into each end. You would thread a net curtain onto this wire and hook it onto a nail which had been belted into the window frame. Then you would hang your net curtains up at the window to stop that nosey old buggar at number 9 from looking into your house.

If you think that we deserve £3 for a coffee then that’s the button.

Oi!

So we hooked the Ikea curtain up and straightened it out. Now, when people arrived to the restaurant, they could see the left side and a quarter of the right side of the dining area. There were tables and chairs behind that curtained off area which had never been used by the public. All this curtain repositioning, is known as success.

But Tina Terminator wasn’t too happy, “This is our staff room, it’s getting smaller.”

So all is going just great. However, a letter arrived.

Donna came to the kitchen with this letter, “Andrew, you need to see this.”

It was from our landlord, and it was an invoice for two years buildings insurance and service charge. You see, when you rent a commercial property, as well as paying the rent, you also have to pay the landlord’s buildings insurance. This wasn’t news to us, we had paid the insurance on the York restaurant, we weren’t that naive.

But this was a hefty amount, the insurance per year was around £1,500, and at the risk of sounding a little distrustful, there was no way these robbers were asking their insurance brokers to search for the best price.

As I read through it my heart was sinking. “So look Donna, that’s two years at just over three grand, and another six hundred quid service charge. What’s that for, it’s not as if they pop over on a Monday morning and give the place a quick spruce up.”

“I know, I’ll call them, there must be a mistake.”

I left Donna to it because I didn’t want to hear what was being said, just in case it was actually our invoice.

Ten minutes later and Donna came back with the news.

“Yes it’s our invoice, it seems that they didn’t send one out last year. So this invoice is for last years insurance and the coming year.”

“Hang on Donna, why didn’t they send it out last year then? Hitting us with a chunky two years insurance isn’t fair.”

“I asked them that, apparently they just didn’t get round to it.”

“What? Didn’t get round to it? What if we don’t get round to paying it? I bet that excuse doesn’t work for us.”

“Yes I know. And the six hundred pounds service charge is for the courtyard area near the fire exit.”

Just to get you up to speed, there were two fire exits at the back of the restaurant which led to a little courtyard behind us, then onto the street. This area was used by the fancy flats above.

“But hang on Donna, the terms of the lease say that we’re only allowed to use the fire exits in an emergency. So we don’t even use that area. I don’t understand why we’re paying service charge for an area which we don’t use.”

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“And what did they say?”

“That’s the terms of the lease.”

So there we go, we were landed with an invoice for nearly four thousand pounds. Time to dip into that overdraft from the old bank account of the York restaurant. Restaurant owners are millionaires don’t you know.

Anyway, a couple of days later, let’s say it was a Wednesday, we were about half way through a steadyish lunch service, we had about twelve diners, when Donna came to the kitchen.

“Andrew, there’s someone in the restaurant who would like to come down and say hello.”

“Oh yea, who is it?”

“David Bann. He’s in London because he’s just been voted best vegetarian restaurant in the country by the Vegetarian Society.”

Just for those who don’t know, David Bann had, and still has, a vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh. It’s been around for donkeys years. Donna and I had been to this restaurant and the food was good, not the same style as our restaurant, a little bit more world food, but it was certainly done well.

“Aye send him down Donna. It’ll be nice to meet him. Hang on, did he like the food?”

“Yes he did, I’ll send him down.”

Now, we have to be careful here because we still speak to David. So he might read this.

But first, a little story. For some unknown reason, I had made up an image of David Bann in my mind. And this image went like so.

David Bann always wore a black Armani suit with a brilliant white, sharp collared shirt underneath. There was no tie, and two buttons were unfastened. David was tall, easily over six foot, and he had black hair which was slicked back. He may have even used Brylcreem, or maybe not, my imagination didn’t go that far. I’m not that weird.

No idea where that image came from, but that was that. So I waited at the entrance to the kitchen for this James Bondish bloke to arrive.

And when I heard the footsteps on the wooden stairs I knew it was David on his way down. But when he turned, as he left the last steps and stood in front of me with his hand out, ready to shake, it didn’t look like my David.

This guy was smaller than me, and he wore jeans and a casual shirt. His hair was greying and not a spot of Brylcreem.

“Hello Andrew, David Bann. How’s it going?”

What, not even a, “The names Bann, David Bann.”

We chatted, David was easy to talk to. He told us about the award he had won from the Vegetarian Society and explained that it should be good for business. He was complimentary about our restaurant and I explained that we had found the move to London very difficult.

David asked if we had ever been involved with the Vegetarian Society and I explained that as we didn’t want to pigeonhole ourselves, we steered clear of them.

And he replied, “Ah yes, I thought so.”

Funny, word must have got out. Vanilla Black, the renegade vegetarian restaurant.

And the conversation came back to the award ceremony, and I asked what the other restaurants were feeling about this whole recession situation.

And David replied, “Yes a lot of restaurant owners are finding it tough at the moment. But many of them are saying that it’s making them look at their finances in more detail, you know, cutting costs and looking for better prices.”

David and I chatted a little more and then he left. We liked him.

But after he left, something he said stayed with me………..

‘Other restaurant owners were giving more attention to their costs because of the recession.’

But hang on, shouldn’t you always focus on your costs, I know we did. If we could get something of the same quality, or better, for the same price, why would we not.

A restaurant is a business, if the costs are managed correctly, the business runs better. That’s it.

And food waste has become a bandwagon, but shouldn’t it have always been important? It’s like, wasting food was OK in the past, but now that Jamie Oliver keeps the scraps of vegetables it’s suddenly very important.

In the 80s, the owner of the Michelin starred La Champion Sauvage, David Everitt-Mattias, started using less humble cuts of meat and relied on foraged ingredients to keep costs down as the country went through a recession.

Sounds smart to me.

When I first started out as a chef in the mid 80s, wasting food was a crime, and the punishment was a kneecapping. My old boss, Big Kev, would hammer it home daily.

He would growl, “Don’t throw those cooked potatoes out, they’ll go into the potato salad tomorrow.”

“The tomatoes aren’t soft, they’re just very ripe. They’ll make good soup.”

And one last one. Big Kev and I came up with a genius idea. We used to have some sesame seed buns delivered, by the hundred. And we noticed that the trays on which they were delivered on always held a few ounces (50g) of stray sesame seeds. So we would collect them in a little pot over a several weeks and incorporate them into a dish when the time was right.

Beat that Jamie.

So, what was the point of all this money saving at the restaurant?

Well, it helped to pay the landlord’s buildings insurance of course.

Thanks for reading this and catch you next week.

Donna and Andrew

By the way, if you’re ever in Edinburgh, do pop in and say hello to David. They do some nice grub and they also have a good selection of cocktails. Shaken not stirred.

https://www.davidbann.co.uk/

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Hello. Intro done.

Welcome to 2009, it’s summer time and London is scorching. This is great when you’re wandering around Regent’s Park on a Saturday afternoon, ogling the picnickers iced cans of Foster’s and trying not to catch the eye of the beggars.

But working in a basement kitchen isn’t so great. You see, after a couple of weeks, the summer heat absorbs into the pavements and eventually seeps into the substructure. Then it reaches basement level and creeps into the walls. And it stays there, keeping those inside nice and snug.

So when the six burner stove is fired up, then a couple of ovens reach temperature, and the salamander belts out a fiery glow, and half a dozen commercial size fridges add a gentle warm breeze from their motors, it can become a little uncomfortable.

Fortunately, our extraction system was a bit of a beast so this helped massively.

Quick story, many years ago I worked in a large hotel and that kitchen was baking hot. So, when we changed into our whites in the staff room we used to store our clothes and shoes in the corner of the walk in freezer. Yes yes it wasn’t a great thing to do, but when you finished your shift and the sweat was running down your body, slipping into a part frozen t shirt was glorious.

Now, as Skater Jane was fairly new to London living, she hadn’t realised that due to inner city warming, London was always a few degrees warmer than other smaller cities.

“Morning lads, it’s hot out there, I’m sweating like a bastard.”

Jane had such a sweet way with words, maybe this was her way of fitting into kitchens. Don’t forget, they’re usually male dominated, even more so back then.

“Hiya Jane. Aye, it’s a scorcher.”

Ben looked up from his chopping board, “Err yea yea, tube was proper sticky this morning.”

Skater Jane went to change and was back in the kitchen a few minutes later.

Ben glanced down at her feet, “Err, New Vans Jane, yea?”

“Yea mate, my old ones had holes in the bottom, they were pissing me right off. These were twenty quid in a sale.”

Ben nodded his approval, “Sick!”

If you would like to buy us a £3 coffee for writing this, that’s the button.

Coffee?

It was at this part of the day, when the three of us were stood around the workbench facing each other, chopping peeling and mixing, that a conversation would start. When Ben and I had been on our own, when Lozza had left and before Jane started, we usually talked about music.

But now that Jane was part of the team the conversation was about food, it was a more inclusive chat. Nobody decided on this, it just happened.

And Skater Jane would probe, she was inquisitive.

“Andrew.”

When she started a sentence like this I knew that she’d been pondering and building up a list of questions.

“Yes Jane.”

“You know how you keep saying that we have to keep coming up with new ideas for dishes? But like, stuff that hasn’t been done before. You know, completely new recipes.”

I liked that Jane was inquisitive, “Err, yea, what about it?”

“Well, once the menu is completely different to every other vegetarian restaurant, which it is now, why do we need to keep coming up with more dishes?”

But before I could answer, Tina Terminator barged into the kitchen, “I need side plates.”

Ben pointed to the shelf in the the far corner of the kitchen, “Errr, yea Tina, usual place yea.”

Ben loved doing this. The shelf was too high for Tina you see, so she had to ask for help to reach the side plates.

“Ben, get them down for me.”

“Err yea yea, no probs Tina. But why can’t you get them yourself?”

“You know why stupid. Pass me them.”

“Errr, Tina, yea yea, but I’ve forgotten why. Remind me why you cant reach the plates.”

“Because the shelf is too high. Now just pass them, come on, I’ve got tables to set.”

“Errr, that shelf isn’t too high for me Tina, yea, so why is it too high for you?”

“OK, because I’m too short. There I’ve said it for you. Now get me the plates stupid.”

Ben strolled slowly over to the shelf, “Err, yea yea, that’s right Tina, you’re too short. Let me help you shorty.”

This happened every time Tina needed side plates, every single time.

Then Ben would hold out a stack of plates and say, “There you go shorty, yea.”

“Give me them, stupid.”

And because Tina Terminator had picked up an English saying, she would stomp off with an armful of plates mumbling, incorrectly, “Good things come in short parcels.”

Then Ben would return to the workbench with a grin on his face.

Jane and I shook our heads and then I replied to her query.

“Well Jane, I have a theory. You see, people allocate part of their wages for things that they like doing, even if it’s not done consciously.”

She nodded, “Beer money for me.”

“Yea, OK. Now, some people may buy a football ticket, some spend their cash on going to the cinema, others save for holidays. You get me?”

“Yea yea I get that.”

“And you have to remember Jane, not everyone loves their job. You know. Some people have mundane jobs, they go to work on a Monday morning, process some numbers, fill out forms, dull stuff. And that goes on until Friday.”

She nodded, “Yea, I couldn’t do that shit mate.”

“Exactly. So going to the cinema, bowling, watching football, that’s their entertainment. It’s what they look forward to, that’s what makes the dull weekdays bearable.”

Jane agreed, “Yea that makes sense, something to sweeten the week I suppose.”

“So the way I see it Jane, is like this. Those who enjoy going to restaurants, are doing so because to them it’s a form of entertainment. You know, they want to go back to work on Monday morning and tell their friends where they went at the weekend.”

Ben listened and nodded gently, maybe he was falling asleep.

“Now my theory Jane, is, who wants to go to work on Monday and say, ‘Oh Patricia, me and John went for a meal on Saturday and we had a lovely slice of quiche’, you see what I mean Jane?”

“Yea, kind of. But some people would be happy with a piece of quiche and some salad.”

“Well yea, Jim and Jean would. But my point is, why even go to a restaurant for quiche and salad. Yes it’s nice for a snack, a bit of scran at lunchtime, but as a form of entertainment? You may as well save your money and buy a quiche from Sainsbury’s.”

“Aye mate, I get ya.”

But she wasn’t getting off that easy.

“The same with a holiday Jane. The general public don’t want to stand around the photocopier bragging that they went to their local park and stayed in a tent for a holiday. They want to tell their friends that they had a great time in the Seychelles.”

Jane was absorbing this.

“And that’s how I see us. Yes we’re a vegetarian restaurant, but I want people to use us as entertainment. I want them to have Brie ice cream as a starter with us and still be talking about it days later. No, weeks later.”

It went quiet for a while, which was nice. Then Skater Jane broke the silence, “You know how Ben helps you with new ideas? Can I try to get involved?”

Ben was nodding a bit faster by now.

“Of course Jane. We want you to be involved, never think that you can’t jump in with an idea. It’s good for you, and the restaurant.”

“Right. That’s brilliant mate. I’m gonna have a think. I’d love to come up with a new dish.”

Ben gave some encouragement, “Err yea yea cool, if you need any help just ask me, yea.”

Jane glared at him, “Yea cheers mate, I think I’ll be alright on my own.”

And a couple of days later I had arrived to the kitchen and started putting the deliveries away as I waited for Ben and Jane.

I had just started when Jane burst through the kitchen door, “Mate, I’ve got a dish, I’m proper buzzing’.”

Then she flipped around and left to get changed.

Ben arrived a few minutes later, he had already been to get changed.

“Hiya Ben. Jane is chuffed, she’s got a new dish to show us.”

“Errr, yea cool, that was quick.”

Jane shoved the door open and scurried over to the workbench, “Right lads, i’ve got it. I was up until three working it out. I think I’ve nailed it.”

And as she talked, very quickly, she grabbed a notebook from a Tesco carrier bag. She opened it, ripped out some pages and scattered them on the workbench.

Ben and I were intrigued, Jane had drawn a number of plates with different shapes on them, and there were arrows and scribbles across the shapes. She had even used different coloured felt tip pens to colour in the sketches. There were oranges and browns, but it was difficult to make out what was what.

Jane was excited, which was unusual, she was normally very cool. She quickly arranged the sheets of paper in front of us and gave us a little pre speech.

“Right. I’ve come up with a main course. Now if you don’t like it, I won’t be offended. If it’s shit, just tell me.”

We nodded.

“Right, lads, I’m thinking here, a pastry case, really thin pastry though.”

She pointed at one of the pictures.

“We’ll blind bake it yea, then, a dark chocolate sauce goes in the case, or a ganache. Whichever, we can decide later.”

Ben nodded, as always, “Err, yea cool, chocolate.”

Jane put a hand up, as if to stop us saying anything else, “And next, and I was really thinking loads about this yea. We boil some carrots, whole though. Right. Then we slice them into discs. Get me?”

I couldn’t really get where this was going, and I checked Ben’s face, he looked a bit lost also. Maybe Jane was going to come up with something which was way beyond our imagination boundaries.

But I responded, “Yea, chocolate, then discs of cooked carrot, gotcha.”

Then Jane turned over one last sheet of paper, and on that sheet was a sketch of the final dish, “Then the discs of cooked carrot will be placed on top of the chocolate. There ya go.”

Ben and I went quiet for a couple of seconds as we tried to absorb the details. It didn’t make sense.

Ben asked for clarification, “Errr, yea cool, err, I see, a dessert, yea?”

Jane scowled at him, “No Ben, it’s a main course. I said I’ve come up with a main course.”

Oh no. This was uncomfortable. Jane had worked so hard but had come up with a terrible idea. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

I carefully sneaked a glance at Ben. Did he think it was a good idea? The muscles on his face had tightened as he struggled to stop a smirk appearing. No, he didn’t get it either.

We needed to say something to Jane, one of us had to. But say what, say it’s crap? I was just hoping that Ben would break the silence, he was well educated, he must know what to say.

But just then, Tina Terminator burst into the kitchen and barked, “I need side plates.”

And both Ben and I pelted to the other side of the kitchen to help Tina.

“I’ll bring them upstairs for you as well Tina.”

“Come on Tina, I’ll help you set the tables.”

Thanks so much for reading this. Donna and Andrew

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this you will never be attacked by a rhinoceros. That’s the truth.

Hello, how you doing?

OK, last week we told you the story about the reviewer from The Sunday Times paying us a visit. Actually, it wasn’t the actual reviewer from The Sunday Times, it was a stand in, a substitute, a replacement.

The real Sunday Times Reviewer was a guy called Adrian Anthony Gill, or AA Gill as he was commonly known. He was a very popular writer, although I never understood his writing, much too intellectual for me. Anyway, he was off on his holidays, so The Sunday Times shoved Jane Bussmann in our direction, and as you may recall from last week, she gave us a literary chinning.

Now, we couldn’t understand why a negative review had attracted so many diners, but it certainly did, well, for a week or two. However, our PR friend, Michelle, had the answer. She and a couple of her colleagues had taken a taxi ride and were talking about the review.

The taxi driver overheard this conversation and gave his two penneth worth*, “As far as I’m concerned, if the restaurant gets a mention in The Times then it must be half decent.”

Cheers cabby!

However, if you have never owned a restaurant, you’re probably thinking, so what, does it really matter? Who really cares about what some random person said about you in a newspaper? What do they know anyway? It’s just one person’s opinion.

And you’re not wrong, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter too much, a review, positive or negative, still attracts diners to the restaurant. It’s not as if they came to the restaurant and gave you a jolly good punch in the bottom.

But wait a minute, because it does matter. And this is why.

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Coffee?

It’s personal. If you chose the name, the decor, the menu, the team and the location of your restaurant, then somebody criticised it, they’re in effect, criticising you.

Let’s say you worked in a car dealership and a customer was having a mooch around. This punter walks over to you, points at a car and says to you, “I hate Fords, they’re crap cars.”

Although you will have to deal with the comment, you probably wouldn’t give a monkeys ding dong, maybe you don’t like Ford cars either.

However, let’s say that this chap now points at your shoes and says, “Are you wearing those for a joke mate, they’re bloody awful?”

Now you do give a monkeys ding dong, in fact, you’d be a tad annoyed.

But this fella doesn’t stop there, now he looks at your hair and sniggers, “Did you actually pay someone to cut your hair or did you just set light to it and roll around in a bush to put it out?”

Chances are, there’s gonna be some fisticuffs.

But why, who really cares about what some random person said about you? What do they know anyway? It’s just one person’s opinion.

But oh no, that Ford comment didn’t matter, but now it’s personal. See.

And although the restaurant was busy for a couple of weeks after that review in The Times, Donna knew that the majority of these diners had read the review. And that’s awkward. It’s embarrassing.

Donna knew that people were sat at the table in front her comparing the actual, to what they had read in the newspaper. They choose the same dishes so that they can make up their own minds. They nod or shake their heads as they recite the review over in their minds.

As Donna heard, “We’re here because we read your review in The Times”, she had squash her cringe, then acknowledge the comment, but pretend that it meant nothing, pretend that she cared about it as much as she cared about lampposts.

“Oh that review, The Times, yes, I forgot about that.”

And fortunately, some of the diners announced that the review was wrong, they enjoyed their meal. Brilliant. Yet some said nothing, and you knew that the review had influenced their opinion.

And there were those who would gloat, they enjoyed the situation, it was almost a power trip.

Jim and Jean would arrive on Friday evening, all dolled up in their Craghoppers outfits and a smug look on their faces.

“Oh yes, we read your review in The Times, such a shame. Don’t worry, we’ll put a review on TripAdvisor for you.”

Thanks Jim and Jean, we will be forever grateful, and if we ever have twins, we shall name them after you.

But, as the human mind is a strange implement, we started to doubt ourselves. Had we got it all wrong, should we tone down the food, maybe offer chickpea curry instead of sweetcorn crème brûlée. Should we change the decor, drop in a few beanbags. Should Tina Terminator and Big Sophia wear a neon pink blouse instead of black.

The answer was ‘No’. We would continue on the path we had started on. That review in The Times was a form of entertainment for Joe Public. The writer didn’t really care about our restaurant, or us, or the food, or the decor. The writer was just using us as a platform to write something which they hoped the public would find amusing. What the writer really cared about was gathering a smidgen of recognition for themselves.

So Donna continued to bypass the Times comments and wait for it to blow over, which it eventually did.

However, this review taught us something about our friends, the very general public. Donna lost count of the amount of times she heard………

“Oh yes, we’re here because we read AA Gill’s review in The Times.”

“Err yes, but it wasn’t AA Gill, it was a stand in.”

“Oh yes, we love reading AA Gill’s reviews, he so entertaining.”

“No, it wasn’t actually AA Gill though.”

“Yes, that’s right, where did he sit? What is he like in real life?”

“Did you actually meet him?”

“Oh he’s so funny, I remember that review of The Café Royal, hilarious.”

“No no, it wasn’t him, they sent somebody else.”

But did they hear Donna’s insistent claims that they had misread the reviews and had merely assumed that AA Gill had done the review as he almost always did?

No. Because they didn’t pay too much attention to the small print, as is so often the case.

So as time went on, Jane Bussmann faded away and we had been reviewed by the well known restaurant critic, AA Gill.

“Yes OK, he was lovely, he sat over there on table eight.”

Thanks for reading this. Next week we’ll stop moaning on about The times and focus on something else.

Donna and Andrew

*The term ‘two penneth worth’ originated in the 1800s and implies that an opinion is small and worth a little amount.

You can read more about restaurant reviewers in this piece by the second funniest person on Substack, Andy Lynes.

Smashed

Smashed #80: Review of the restaurant reviews - no such thing as a restaurant critic

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4 months ago · 35 likes · 23 comments · Andy Lynes

Hiya.

OK, back to it. The year is 2009 and we’re getting busier, but in a steady kinda way. The numbers inched up, not to the heights they needed to be at, but there was movement.

Mondays were still very quiet, the lunch could be a nice round zero, and on the evening we could reach highs of six people. But the end of the week was better, Thursday and Friday evenings could push into the late twenties. So, not bad.

This meant that we needed a little more help with front of house. I couldn’t help Donna and Tina anymore, there was too much to do in the kitchen.

And luckily for us, Tina Terminator had a friend of a friend who was interested. So Donna met with the friend of the friend, Sophia, and they had a chat. Sophia was from Latvia and had worked in London for a year.

She told Donna that she had been excited to travel to London since she was a child after reading stories in the newspapers about the Royal family and Buckingham Palace. She expected to see Kings, Queens and Princes wandering the streets. A quick search on the internet couldn’t happen back then, so she had only her imagination as a guide.

But she was disappointed when she arrived as the reality of London living was traveling on the Tube and inhaling the fag breath of the greasy haired bloke next to her.

Sophia had been working at a restaurant which was famous for its Champagne bar, but apparently, nobody ever used the bar. There we go, it wasn’t just us then.

Sophia joined us and became part of our team. She didn’t say much, she was quite reserved, but she learned quickly and we liked her. And, she was very tall, all of us had to look upwards when we spoke to her. Ben called her Big Sophia, we didn’t tell her that.

But as is always the case, the extra hands were necessary for the Thursday and Friday rush, but those hands were a little bored at the beginning of the week. But we held on, busyness would arrive soon.

So because of this new situation, Donna had an idea, doesn’t she always.

“Andrew, why don’t we go on a short city break for a few days?”

“WHAT? We can’t afford that. Where’s the money coming from. And what about this place?”

“We could go on the Eurostar. We could travel on a Sunday and come back on Tuesday evening. Then back here on Wednesday morning. That means they guys would only be without us Monday and Tuesday. Nothing much will happen on those days.”

I was warming to it.

If you would like to buy us a three quid coffee, that’s the button.

Ccccccoffee

“And I’ve looked, we can go to Brussels, the Eurostar is quite cheap, so are the hotels, probably because it’s the beginning of the week.”

It was starting to sound attractive, we hadn’t been on holiday for years. So Donna set to work booking the Eurostar and a hotel. I couldn’t do it, I have the attention span of a fruit fly.

But because we’re are nice, we asked for permission first.

Donna went first, “Tina, we’re thinking of going to Brussels one Monday or Tuesday, will you be OK without me?”

Tina immediately grew a few centimetres taller, “Yes no problem, you go, leave it with me.” Then she turned to Sophia and reached up to pat her on the shoulder.

I asked Ben and Skater Jane if they would be OK without me for a couple of days.

Jane shrugged, “Yea mate, no bother, we’ll be alright.”

Ben gave us his blessing, “Yea yea, cool guys, you errr, yea you work a lot, you need to get away.”

There we go. Booked for the week after.

As usual it was a quiet Monday, which was good for Sophia, gave her time to get into the swing of things.

The evening service was slow, as usual, but we expected that. However, that evening, there was one particular diner who stood out.

Tina Terminator came to the kitchen, “Strange woman on table eight, turned up with loads of shopping bags and keeps going out for a smoke.’

Ben enjoyed winding Tina up, “Errr yea, yea, nothing wrong with that Tina, maybe she didn’t have time to go shopping at the weekend.”

And as usual Tina would fight back, “Listen. She had the sweetcorn crème brûlée and smoked paprika biscuits to start……”

Ben saw his chance and jumped in, “Well errr, it’s on the menu Tina yea, so what’s wrong with that?”

“Listen stupid. She said she was finished, but when I took her plate, she made me stand there and hold it while she ate one of those biscuits and the salsa.”

Skater Jane was puzzled, “What, you held the plate while she ate from it?”

“Yes, because she forgot to try part of the food.”

Ben sniggered, “Errr yea cool, you’re very helpful Tina. You’re the restaurant plate holder.”

“Shut up Ben,” and off trotted Tina.

Ten minutes later, Donna came to the kitchen, “Woman on table eight is odd, she’s swearing really loudly, the other customers are staring at her.”

This went on all evening, this lady was complaining loudly about the food and spent most of the evening smoking outside.

After one of the many cigarette breaks, she came back in, strutted past the reception area, and in a frustrated manner asked, “Errr, can we have our dessert menus?”

Donna stood her ground, “They’re on your table.”

There was something wrong. We got the feeling that she didn’t want to be at our restaurant, it was as if she’d been ordered to attend. She certainly wasn’t enjoying the food, but she was enjoying loudly complaining to her friend, and the few diners around her.

But odd people in restaurants is a standard occurrence, so we filed it under ‘Stories for the future’.

However, a few days later we received a phone call from PR Michelle, “Hi Donna, hope all is good. Err, listen, you’ve been reviewed by the Sunday Times.”

Donna was taken aback, “AA Gill has visited us?”

“Err, no, someone called Jane Bussmann, a stand in.”

That made sense, send us the substitute.

“Do you know what she said, did she like it?”

“I don’t know Donna, we won’t find out until the day the paper is on sale.”

Donna finished the call and came to tell the rest of us. We were excited and apprehensive, as we always were when we knew we’d been reviewed.

And as we all stood around and pondered the outcome, Tina piped up, “I bet it was that smoking woman on table eight.”

Skater Jane was straight in, “No way Tina, you said she didn’t even know what she was eating.”

Tina stood a little straighter and folded her arms, “I’m telling you, it’s her.”

The edition in which our review was published came out on the Sunday that we were travelling to Brussels. We left our flat and grabbed a copy so that we could read it on the Eurostar. But we didn’t get that far, we read the review around the corner.

Tina was right, it was that smoking woman. It was a terrible review. She hated almost everything, a starter and a dessert were given the OK. But everything else had been shot down, the team, the food, the decor and the atmosphere. She also mentioned items of food which weren’t even on the menu.

It was written in such a way that suggested that there was a deep hatred for what we were doing. Over the top analogies were used to berate the dishes and the decor, as if the writer was being deliberately provocative, almost trying to prove herself.

Ahh there we go, we read a little more and it turned out that her book had recently been published. This public hanging was an advert, she was setting her stall out.

But no matter, it was in print, and we couldn’t do anything about it.

We folded up the Sunday Times and boarded the Eurostar. And as we walked to our seat, what newspaper was being read by a large chunk of the other passengers? The Sunday Times.

We walked past them with our heads down, staring at our shoes as we searched for our seat.

I sent Ben a message to ask if he had read it. He had, but tried to soften it by focussing on a couple of the positives. Cheers Ben.

Brussels is a great city, and we enjoyed being there, but we spent a lot of our time mulling over that review. When you’ve built something from a vision, and given it time, money and bags of hope, then someone tells you that it’s crap….it hurts.

On the Tuesday, the last day of the Brussels trip, Donna called the restaurant to ask how they had been without us. But nobody was answering the restaurant phone. Strange, Tina always answered the phone.

So I called Ben on his mobile, “Hi Ben, all good, has anything bad happened?’

He sounded distracted, “Err yea hi, err yea yea cool, yea cool.”

“So nothing to tell me?”

“No no, yea cool yea, all good.” Something seemed off.

We arrived back at the restaurant on the Wednesday morning, and as usual Tina Terminator was waiting at the door.

“Hi guys, how was Brussels?”

Donna replied, “Thanks Tina, yes, it’s a great city, and the weather was nice too. But how have things been here?”

Tina threw up her little arms, “Oh my God, we’ve been so busy, it hasn’t stopped. And Sophia, she’s been very good, I taught her well. Open the door.”

I couldn’t understand what was going on, “Why Tina, what happened? How come it’s been so busy?”

“I don’t know, maybe that review. It’s been great. Open the door.”

Donna and I were baffled, “But Tina, the review was bad, how……”

“Come on, open the door, we’ve got another busy lunch, and there’s thirty four booked in tonight.”

Thanks Jane Bussmann.

Join us next week and thanks for reading this, we do appreciate it.

Andrew and Donna

Well hello to you, and welcome back to our story.

Right, last week we ended on a phone call. And this phone call was from our PR people, they were making a booking for Alexandra Burke, the singer and actress.

Alexandra Burke won X Factor in 2008 and went on to release three studio albums and has had half a dozen acting roles.

And having this celebrity in our restaurant would, as it did with Joanna Lumley, help to raise our profile. We needed to shed that image of a vegetarian restaurant being a chilled out cafe where hippies drank beck water from rusty baked bean tins and nibbled on nettle brownies.

But hang on, was all this very shallow? Was promoting a celebrity visit a bit needy? Or was it even a bit pathetic, looking up to the celebs as if they were mini Gods?

Needing the recognition of a popular person, it’s playground stuff really isn’t it.

It’s ‘Popular Kid At School Syndrome’. Remember Tony and Angela? They would only engage with those who were worthy. But you, yes you, you so desperately wanted to be recognised by them. Because if they did acknowledge you, then you would also be deemed popular. But if they didn’t acknowledged you, it was back to the corner of the playground for you.

But it didn’t stop in the playground did it? We still see it now, even as adults. Yes? No?

Well, let’s look at it.

If a well known person, let’s call them Billy Billionaire, puts out a post on Instagram, there will be some comments. But will Billy respond to the comments? Possibly, but it’s doubtful.

But there’s hope, if you leave a great comment, then surely Billy will reply, then you would be deemed worthy enough of Billy’s attention. But it’s a long shot.

However, if one of those comments was from someone who was also well known, or even more well known than Billy? Would Billy respond to them? Probably. Even Billy Billionaire is a bit needy.

Take a look at Instagram, it happens so many times.

However, some of us from that dark corner of the playground will find another cunning method with which to grab the attention of Tony, Angela or Billy Billionaire.

A bit of flattery. Which, in the playground could have been a few sweet words about Tony’s haversack or Angela’s pencil case. This was often met with, “Who are you?”

But today, if we wanted some recognition from Billy Billionaire, maybe we could tag him in one of our Instagram posts. If there is acknowledgement from our Billy, others may assume that we too are a popular kids.

Isn’t social media great, ‘Popular Kid At School Syndrome’ continues.

So yes, hanging onto the coat tails of the famous is shallow and needy, but as we saw it, this was business. We needed to do it.

We would sell our soles to the celebrity Gods so that we too would be popular.

So we booked in a complimentary table for two under the name of Alexandra Burke. Let us cash in on that fame. Plus, we needed to be busier.

Anyway, let’s get on. It seemed that having our recipes in a couple of publications was starting to attract attention, more diners were appearing at our door. It was finally happening, not exactly an avalanche of bookings, more of a steady tumble.

And it was one of these bookings which taught us a valuable lesson.

A table of twelve made a booking, this was unusual for us, the biggest request was usually for a table of six. No problem, it would help with the atmosphere, give a bit of a buzz. Maybe that would stop Jim and Jean from complaining that the place was dead.

However, our style of food didn’t lend itself to larger numbers. Each dish required a number of small elements which needed preparing, cooking and arranging on the plate. If we were doing pasta bake, a casserole or pie and chips, no bother, plonk them on and out they go. Our plating was more time consuming.

But Donna had an idea, she would call them and ask them to pre order their options.

Didn’t work, they weren’t fussed on that idea. No worries, we would make it work. We needed the revenue, so we would just have to deal with it.

You can buy us a coffee if you think we deserve one.

Coffee

So on the evening of the Big Table, the learning of a lesson started fairly quickly. They had requested a time of 7:00pm, nothing wrong with that. We would just make sure that we didn’t book in any other tables within half an hour of them.

However, they didn’t arrive at 7:00pm, well, three of them did. Twenty minutes later, another four arrived. And ten minutes later, another two. So now it’s 7:30pm, and three of them are missing.

‘So what’, you say. What’s wrong with that?

Well, what happens next is that the table of four who are booked in at 7:30pm, arrive on time, good on them. Troopers.

And fifteen minutes later, the final three join the Big Table. These three don’t want to be there, they’re only there because it’s their friends birthday. Why would they want to be there, it’s a vegetarian restaurant.

Then, the table of three, which are booked in at 7:45pm arrive on time. Setting a good example here.

And then some stupidity kicks in.

Someone on the Big Table sticks up their hand and says, “Errr, can we order, it’s quarter to eight, we’ve been here since seven.”

Eh! You may have been here at seven but your mates have only just arrived, which when said out loud is “Certainly, no problem.”

But because the final three had just arrived, they didn’t want to order straight off, they wanted a bit of a catch up.

So, taking their order is not easy.

“Can I take your order?”

Blank looks, confusion and mumbling.

“I haven’t looked yet.”

“Are you having a starter Jean?”

“Smoked yellow pea soup with Marmite dumplings, sounds weird.”

“About time, we’ve been here since seven.”

After five minutes of decision making, discussion and dithering, the order for starters is taken.

“And main courses?”

Oh, that’s thrown them.

“Oh, errrr, I’ll have that mushroom thing, no, I’m having a mushroom crème brûlée for starter. I think. I’ve forgotten.”

“I didn’t see the mushroom crème brûlée, I might change, I like the sound of that.”

“I’m not bothered, I’ll have anything, I’m not a vegetarian.”

“How hungry will I be after my starter?”

By 8:00pm the kitchen is hit with a table of three, a table of four and a table of twelve. That’s nineteen orders to deal with immediately.

Thanks Big Table.

But fortunately, we had snacks, or appetisers, little small portions which were given complimentary.

We stopped calling them amuse bouche because we became sick of hearing Jim and Jean say, “Ohhh, I wonder if my bouche will be amused.”

There were two reasons for giving these little snacks, firstly, because other vegetarian restaurants didn’t, and secondly, and this is why most restaurants give them, to allow time for the starters to be plated.

Forget all that nonsense about whetting your appetite, they’re just buying time for the kitchen.

And we would also use them to slow, or speed up the service. In this case, we delivered them to the Big Table first, just to keep them happy, then leave it five minutes before dropping them at the table of four and the table of three.

As they were placed with the Big Table, “Aerated apple purée and mint oil.”

“What, I didn’t order this.”

“Are we getting charged for this?”

“Aerated?”

And of course, due to chattering and dithering, the diners from all of tables finish their snacks at the same time. Typical.

Now the kitchen has to have all of the starters out at the same time. But which table first? You physically cannot do nineteen intricate dishes in one shot.

So who first, the table of four, the table of three, or the Big Table. If we make the Big Table wait any longer, those who arrived at seven are gonna be in a right huff.

But why make the smaller tables wait, they arrived on time.

And it’s happening with the drinks also. The table of four, “A bottle of the Carmenere please.”

Big Table…….

“Shall we have red wine, a few bottles of red. Yea?”

“I don’t like red wine. Can we have white?”

“Let’s mix it together and have rosé, guffaw guffaw chortle chortle.”

“No, I fancy one of those local beers.”

So the lesson learned was this. Dealing with a big table can have an impact on other diners. Getting the food plated without it going cold is also very problematic. They were time consuming and labour intensive. And due to this, the risk of them having a negative opinion of the restaurant was high.

So what did we do? We had a little look on other restaurant websites and stole their ideas. Going forward, the maximum table size was a twelve and pre ordering was required. And no mumbling. Or dithering.

The next morning Donna took a phone call from Michelle, our PR person.

After listening for a minute, Donna put Michelle on hold, “Andrew, Alexandra Burke wants to increase her complimentary table of two, to a four. That’s a bit cheeky isn’t it?”

“Yea, it is a bit. What shall we say?”

Donna returned to the conversation with Michelle, “Sorry Michelle, that just seems a bit cheeky, so no, the complimentary table can be for two only.”

A few minutes later Michelle called back, “Hi Donna, I let Alexandra Burke know that it was a complimentary table for two only, and they’ve cancelled the booking.”

There we go, catch up next week and thanks for reading our Substack.

Donna and Andrew

Did you know, if you put a Like at the end of this, you will receive a free hat made from garlic butter.

Right, let’s follow on from last week, our shiny new PR company had invited Joanna Lumley to the restaurant and then accidentally leaked it to the press.

This was very good for the image of the restaurant.

How? Well, it’s about association. Informing the public that Joanna Lumley had used the services of our restaurant was, for us, creating a better public image than having, let’s say, Jedward visiting us. Nothing wrong with Jedward, we have all of their hit albums.

And this visit must have caused ripples, because on Monday morning, Jack, the guy from the restaurant next door, popped in to see us.

Jack was always in a rush, and as usual he was on the phone whilst also talking to us, “Yea, no problem, let’s go with that. Morning chaps, how’s things?”

“Yea good thanks Jack. Do you need to borrow some tables and chairs?”

You may remember that Jack’s restaurant was so busy, they needed to use our tables and chairs to cope with the influx of diners. Which was fine, because we hardly had any diners.

He finished his phone conversation and then replied, “OK catch you later James. No it’s OK thanks, no tables today. I err, just wondered, did you have Joanna Lumley in here on Friday night?”

Ahhh, he just wanted gossip, funny.

“Yes we did Jack. Our PR company invited her.”

“Yes I thought it was her. I saw her outside and I assumed that she was coming to my restaurant.”

“No jack, she was visiting us. We’ve hired a PR company to try and help drum up some trade.”

“Yea we used a PR company when we first opened, but now we just use Toptable.”

An explanation. Toptable, or Opentable as it is now known, is a restaurant booking platform. It works on a similar principle to the holiday booking websites. You hit on their page, choose a restaurant which you like the look of, then make a booking via their site.

It’s just easier than trawling through hundreds of pages of information, everything is in one place for your convenience. Plus, you can read reviews from Jim and Jean.

It’s easy and it doesn’t cost anything, and in some respects, it’s also useful for restaurants. It can reach a huge audience, and you didn’t have to answer the phone, the booking came by email.

However, from the restaurants point of view, there is a cost. When we first started using them, the charge was £2 per head. These guys are on a good thing when you consider that it’s an automated service, they don’t actually make the booking on your behalf, the Matrix sorts it out.

And £2 doesn’t sound too bad, but it soon adds up. A hundred diners a week is £800 a month.

But there’s something else, a large number of restaurants also use the site to boost their revenue. Let’s say that your restaurant is always a bit dead on a Monday and Tuesday, Opentable can run a promotion for you on those days.

You may want to offer a free glass of wine with every three course meal, or an extra potato with every main course.

They will then email every single person on their database to let them know, that’s a lot of people. This can drive those people to you on those quieter days, very helpful.

Sounds good, and it is, but the restaurant has to pay Opentable to run the promotion, which at the time, was £600 a month. So add the £800 for the bookings and the £600 and we’re at £1400 a month. Plus, don’t forget that the promotion means that the restaurant is giving something away, so that £1400 a month can easily go over £2000 a month. There are other packages too, but you can imagine that an online booking platform is a double edged sword for a restaurant.

When we realised that Jack was running promotions through this site, such as buy one meal, get another free, we started to realise why he was so busy.

And it also confirmed that our £700 a month payment to the PR company, was a bargain. And, we were creating an image.

Jack left to go back to his restaurant leaving Donna and I a bit smug because a celebrity had visited us, but not him.

If you think we deserve a there quid cup of coffee, that’s the button.

A coffee?

But that smugness was short lived when Ben gave us some news from the kitchen.

“Errr, yea yea guys, the errr water, the hot water isn’t, errr, working.”

“I was just on my way down Ben, what’s wrong with it?”

“Yea cool, errr, yea, it’s not hot.”

“Let me have a look, it’ll probably be a fuse.”

But when I got to the boiler, it wasn’t a fuse, it was completely dead, even a few taps with a screwdriver did nothing. This could only mean one thing.

“Ben, we’ll have to get Vic out.”

You may remember that in the past we had used a maintenance guy called Vic, to fix a fridge. And he brought along his sidekick, Tommy. Do you remember him, the guy with the Batman shoes?

“Errr, yea yea, he’ll sort it out. Yea he’s errr, OK.”

“Yea Ben, but do you remember his little pal,Tommy? He talked our ears off. He talked crap about his dog and his lazy kids. Remember?”

Ben gave himself a few seconds to recall, “Ah shit yea, yea he went on for ages didn’t he.”

Ben and I laughed a little as we remembered this little bloke going on and on about his kids being lazy and they wouldn’t take the dog for a walk. It was painful at the time, this guy could put you in a trance with his drooling on, but now we found it funny.

Then Ben jumped a little, “Hey, you know what yea, we could get Tommy to talk Jane’s ears off, that would be so funny. She’s never met him so errr, yea, she wouldn’t know what was coming.”

“Oh yes, good one Ben. Yea, we could tell him that she’s thinking of getting a dog and needs some advice.”

Ben liked this, “Yea, sick.”

In the meantime we boiled pans of water for the washing up, luckily it was Monday so not much was happening.

And unusually, within a couple of hours, Vic arrived to fix the boiler. And we were in luck, Tommy was with him also.

Donna let them in and shouted downstairs, “Andrew, Vic and Tommy are here.”

Skater Jane piped up, “Lads, who are Vic and Tommy? Sounds like a comedy duo.”

As Ben explained to Jane that they were the maintenance guys, I went and showed them the boiler in the office.

“Hiya Vic, alright?”

“Yea no bovver mate, I reckon it’s the element, they always go on these boilers.” Then Vic started to root around in his bag for some tools.

Little Tommy stood with his hands in his pockets watching Vic.

“Hi Tommy, you alright?”

“Yea, not bad. Well I would be better if it wasn’t for this weather. One minute it’s raining, next minute the bloody suns out. Ya don’t know where you are. I put this jacket on this morning and I said to the missus……..”

“Great stuff Tommy. Hey listen, a new lass started with us, you haven’t met her yet. She’s thinking about getting a dog, a Staffy. You’ve got one of those haven’t you Tommy?”

“Oh have I, bloody thing. This morning……..”

“Tommy, I’ve had an idea, you could give her some advice about dogs.”

“Yea, course I can, no problem. What I don’t know about dogs is nobody’s business. I was telling Vic the other day……..”

“She’s in the kitchen, I’ll send her out to see you.”

Tommy stood on his tiptoes and looked through the circular window of the kitchen door, “That one there, looks like a lad to me.”

“No Tommy, she’s just a bit tomboyish.”

I went into the kitchen, Ben pretended nothing was happening, I said nothing for a minute or two.

“Hey Jane, I’m gonna make a coffee, go and ask Vic and Tommy if they want one.”

“Aye OK, they’re in the office, yea.”

“Yea yea, that’s right.”

Ben and I waited for a few seconds, then we crept to the door and listened, we could just make out what was going on. Vic must have already said yes to a coffee, now we could hear Tommy talking.

“Yea that would great, thanks. I like a coffee I do.”

“OK, be back in a minute.”

But before she could leave……..

“So your thinking of getting a dog then?”

“Me mate, nah.”

“I wouldn’t be without mine. Keeps me sane she does.”

“Oh right, nice. I’m not really a dog person though.”

“Yea you’ll be alwight with a Staffy. People say they’re vicious, but it’s all in the training ya know.”

“Yea yea, OK, but I don’t want one.”

“Faithful they are, very faithful. I was telling Vic the other day, that dog of mine, Tess, she goes everywhere with me. I went to Tesco Express the other morning for a packet of baccy and I didn’t take her with me, when I got back she was proper miffed, had to take her out for ten minutes just to make up for it. Isn’t that right Vic?”

“Yes Tommy, pass the torch will ya.”

“She sounds great, I’ll go and get your coffee.”

“Have yer had a Staffy before?”

“Nah mate, like I said, I’m not really into dogs. I’ll be back in a minute, I’ve got a pan on.”

There was no escaping………..

“Can’t go wrong, ya can’t go wrong. Don’t go getting a rescue dog though. My mate got one from Battersea, took his bloody arm off it did. Clean off. Yea, I was telling Vic. Do it proper, get yourself a pup, train it yerself, but be patient. They ain’t daft, but ya need to give ‘em time. This is what I was sayin’ to my missus. The reason Tess did a shit in the airing cupboard is because she wasn’t trained proper. I mean, I don’t have time to train her, I’m out with Vic every day, so I can’t be responsible for the shit in the cupboard. But oh no, you know my missus, if anything goes wrong in that flat, it’s my fault. And those bloody kids of mine. Don’t get me started on them. I bet yer bottom dollar, when that dog was doing a dump in that cupboard, those two would have been on that Xbox, that bloody War of Duty or whatever it is. Sat around doing nowt, but oh no, it’s all my fault. I was telling Vic the other day, I don’t know why we ever got that dog, causes more problems than enough, bloody nuisance I said. Wasn’t I Vic?”

“Yes Tommy.”

“So there ya go lad, think about it before ya go ahead.”

“Err, I’m not a lad.”

“Oh yea, milk and three sugars for both of us. Can’t beat a sweet coffee, that’s what I always say.”

Ben and I were killing ourselves laughing in the kitchen.

Then Skater Jane burst in, “You pair of bastards, you set that up didn’t you?”

Fortunately there was a phone call from our PR person, Michelle, so I made my escape.

“Hi Andrew, can I make a reservation for two people for this Friday at 8pm? It’s under the name of Alexandra Burke.”

Right, thanks for reading this longer than usual version, catch you next week.

Andrew and Donna

Welcome one and all.

OK, let’s go. A little catch up for thee. We have employed the services of PR company and they were nothing like Joanna Lumley’s character, Patsy, from Absolutely Fabulous. They’re actually quite normal.

And this PR company were going to help us become a lot busier. We needed this, a year and a half on the edge of bankruptcy did raise the stress level a little too much. They were also going to change the public’s image of our vegetarian restaurant. No more, “Oh you own a veggie café, we’ll pop in for a Chimichanga and a glass of cabbage wine one day.”

And they got to work pretty quickly.

The first thing they did was to ask for a recipe….for The Metro. And for those who are not familiar with The Metro, it’s a free newspaper which is available on London transport, the bus and the tube and all that.

We were chuffed, a recipe in a newspaper which would be seen by tens of thousands of people. This was brilliant.

“Thanks for this Michelle, it’s such good news. And what does the recipe have to be for?”

“Pineapple, they’re running a feature on pineapple and they’re looking for contributions. And they want something a bit different.”

“No problem, I can do that. When do you need it?”

“By three this afternoon. Oh yea, and it can’t be more than 150 words, they don’t have much space.”

“Hang on, by three, and 150 words. How can it be a different and unusual recipe with 150 words? Peel it and eat it?”

“Yes I know Andrew, but this is how they work.”

So I ran into the kitchen and told Ben and Skater Jane about the task and asked if they had any ideas.

Ben pondered, “Errrr, yea, cool, yea errr, pineapple, errrr, 150 words. Errr, yea, no.”

And Skater Jane’s response was a little more unforgiving, “The silly bastards, how can you write an interesting recipe in a few words?”

If you think we deserve absolutely nothing for writing this, that’s the button right there.

No Coffee

Well, with very little help, and in between making mushroom crème brûlée for starters, I dotted back and forth to the office and started tapping up a recipe, of sorts.

Then Donna passed by the office and I had a whinge at her also, but she had an idea.

“Why don’t you do something spicy with the pineapple? I don’t know, maybe star anise. And to save the word count, you could just tell them to serve it with ice cream.”

Genius, so there we go, we gave them pineapple poached in chilli and star anise syrup. Served with vanilla ice cream. Or something like that.

Back to the oven to turn the mushroom brûlée’s around so they cooked evenly.

Michelle seemed happy with our effort. We thought it was much too basic, like something you would see squeezed into a newspaper article. Hang on!

But it was publicity, and we desperately needed it.

Two days later, Michelle called again, “Hi, a magazine is looking for five simple recipes using Edam cheese. Do you think you could so something by tomorrow afternoon?”

“Edam? I can’t stand Edam. The red wax coating has more flavour than the actual cheese.”

“Yes Andrew, but that’s not our concern. Can you do it?”

“Yes, I suppose so. It all helps.”

This was hard. Trying to come up with new and easy recipes was time consuming. It’s no wonder the recipes you see in a lot of publications look like everything you’ve seen before, but with a few swapped ingredients. Edam soufflé, Edam and mustard soufflé, brie soufflé, truffled Brie soufflé. So I made a start.

But the next morning Michelle called again.

What now, ten recipes featuring warm water.

“Morning Andrew, are you busy this Friday evening?”

Strange question, maybe Michelle was wondering if that pineapple recipe was drawing in the crowds.

“Hiya Michelle, give me a second, I’ll ask Donna.”

I ran upstairs to the restaurant floor and asked Donna, “It’s fairly busy Andrew, there’s eighteen booked in. We may get a few more by Friday also.”

If we reached twenty on a Friday that was a big number for us at the time, in later years we would reach eighty.

“Hi Michelle, not bad, eighteen covers, why do you ask?”

“Can I reserve a table for two at 7:30pm?”

“Yes of course, is it for you?”

“No, it’s for Joanna Lumley.”

“What? Joanna Lumley, from Absolutely Fabulous?”

“Yes, we contacted her to offer a complimentary meal and she would like to visit on Friday evening with her husband.”

Joanna Lumley, the actor who’d been in a bond movie. Joanna Lumley from Coronation Street. Joanna Lumley from Absolutely Fabulous. Joanna Lumley from Sapphire and Steel.

Joanna Lumley from that 1970s spy series, The New Avengers, when she played Purdey.

I even remember lasses at school getting the Purdey haircut. Actually, I think my mam has one of those school photographs with the swirly blue background in which I’m pictured with a Purdey haircut.

She was coming to our restaurant. This was great news for us. Stuff the Edam cheese.

So we said yes, and Joanna and her husband were booked in.

Donna was surprised and impressed.

Tina Terminator didn’t know who she was.

Skater Jane wasn’t bothered.

Ben was mildly pleased, “Errr, yea yea, pretty cool, I’ll have to tell my folks.”

I was just about to send a few messages to friends and family, just to show off a bit, but I felt a presence behind me.

I turned and glanced down, Tina Terminator was stood there, arms folded and looking up at me. She was wearing a stern face, even more stern than usual. And she had something to say.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re famous, everyone is the same to me,” and off she trotted. Nothing like a bit of Tina to bring you back to where you belong.

(Although some years later, when Nathalie Emmanuel from Game of Thrones visited, Tina’s principles changed.)

Friday evening came along, and by now the novelty of Joanna Lumley paying us a visit had worn off. Plus, we had 22 people booked in, this was all systems go, we needed to focus.

It was one of those evenings where, as usual, diners are booked in at staggered times to make sure service is smooth and steady. But they had other ideas.

“Hi, yes, we have a table booked at 8pm but we’re an hour early, that’s OK isn’t it?”

What can you say to that, “Go for a walk around the block for an hour.”

Or, “No problem, I’ll show you to your table.”

And the next one, “Sorry, we had a table booked at 6:30pm but we’re half an hour late, we lingered in the pub around the corner and lost track of time, is that OK?”

“Of course, no problem, why do we even have a booking schedule anyway?”

So by the time Joanna arrived, the place looked very busy, she must have wondered why we needed a PR company. And don’t forget, we still had half of the restaurant hidden behind an Ikea curtain so that the space didn’t look empty.

The evening got off to a crazy start, and Tina kept running into the kitchen,

“Sorry guys, another table has turned up early, we’ll try to slow them down.”

“Sorry guys, another table has turned up late, we’ll try to slow them down.”

Go! Go! Go! We were getting hammered immediately.

“Jane, give me a hand with these starters will ya. You plate that soya curd and I’ll burn up a couple of brûlées.”

“On it bud.”

“Ben, you OK?”

“Err yea yea cool, just picking through these sea asters.”

Tina came belting back into the kitchen, “Guys, we have a table of 4 of walk ins,” then she ran off.

“Quick, Jane, bread for table 3, you got it?”

“On it mate.”

Ben was bouncing around the stove, “Err, yea, cool guys, could I get a hand plating these mains?”

Jane dropped the bread bowl into the dumb waiter, pressed the green button, then spun around and joined Ben.

Ben plated the ash baked celeriac and draped the sea asters over the top, finishing with the strained yoghurt and charred broccoli.

At the same time, Jane’s lightning speed helped her to catch up as she added the tarragon sponge to the warm mushroom mousse.

Ben glanced at her plating, “Err, yea cool, don’t forget the mooli.”

“Shit, yea mate, there we go.”

Into the dumb waiter with those plates, doors closed and green button hit. Then straight back to the next ticket.

Ben read the ticket, he was chuffed because it was a table of four and all the mains were the same, easy one, “Yea yea, sick.”

Then Donna came to the kitchen, “Andrew, Joanna Lumley would like to speak to you.”

Myself, Skater Jane and Ben looked up, we’d been so busy, we forgot about her.

“Oh yea, I forgot. What’s she like, is she happy with the food?”

“Yes, she enjoyed everything, and her husband did also. It’s funny because other diners are nudging each other and looking over to her table.”

I took off my apron, “Guys, I’ll be back in a minute.”

I followed Donna out of the kitchen, Donna introduced me to Joanna and her husband and told them that she would see them back upstairs.

But, you know when you see people on the telly and they’re really warm and genuine, and then you hear from someone that in real life they’re nothing like that? Joanna Lumley wasn’t one of those people.

She was very friendly and open, and she smiled a lot. Her husband was a decent bloke too. She loved the food, she was amazed at such unusual combinations. She also expressed how refreshing it was to dine in a vegetarian restaurant which didn’t feel like a café.

So overall, Joanna Lumley was………..absolutely fabulous.

And finally, people were going to hear about us. On Monday morning, there was a picture of Joanna on the front page of The Metro, in the top corner, with the caption, ‘Joanna Lumley spotted at fine dining vegetarian restaurant, Vanilla Black’.

Bloody fine dining restaurant, why did people keep saying that.

Right, thanks for reading this, see you next week for more stuff.

Andrew and Donna

Hello you.

OK, let’s cast your mind back a whole week, and you’ll recall that Donna and I were sat in the reception area of our restaurant, and the PR People had just appeared at the door. Dum Dum Dum!

And for some reason, we were a little nervous about this. No, maybe uncomfortable is a better word.

You see, PR companies, in our mind, were not from our world. We had never used one before and they only dealt with famous people. Didn’t they?

To be honest, we weren’t even sure what a Public Relations company actually did.

And a tad more honesty on my side, I had a feeling that this meeting was going to be like a scene from Absolutely Fabulous.

Joanna Lumley’s character, Patsy, was going to totter in with open arms declaring that she had arrived.

(Just in case you never saw Joanna Lumley as Patsy)

There was going to be loads of kissy-kissy-cheeky-cheeky and “Yah darling,” going on. I was sure of it.

But they were at the door, so there was no escaping now. Donna walked over to let them in and say ‘Hi’, I lagged behind.

“Hello, I’’m Donna, nice to meet you.”

“Hi, I’m Andrew.”

These three ladies introduced themselves. They all had names, but we can only remember one of them, Michelle. Not quite the kind of name I was expecting, in my puddled mind they would be called Tabitha or Cordelia.

And none of them flung open their arms and screeched “Hi darling.” They seemed quite, errrr, normal. And absolutely no shoulder pads.

We all sat on the allocated chairs and Donna offered them some water, yes, that bottled water.

If you think we deserve three quids for writing this, that’s the button.

eeffoC

We jumped straight in and told them that we had agreed to meet them because we were struggling. We felt that we had a good product, but not enough people knew about us. We needed help.

They nodded in agreement, as if they knew.

We explained that we were also trying to convey the message that we were not the same as other vegetarian restaurants. We were not relying on World food dishes, we weren’t a pit stop for refuelling, we wanted people to visit us as a form of entertainment.

We gave an example.

“Someone wouldn’t go to Gordon Ramsay’s three star restaurant for a quick bite to eat. They wouldn’t go there to fill up there bellies for a fiver. They go there to have a meal which they couldn’t cook themselves at home. They go there to eat something they possibly wouldn’t see in any other restaurant.”

Michelle and the two no names listened keenly.

“And that’s how we see ourselves, you don’t come to us to fill your belly, you come to us to fill your mind. We want people to walk away and think about what they had just eaten. Even if they didn’t like it. We want them to question it, to remember the dish. If they go to Beanbag café for a bowl of tomato and herb soup, chances are, that soup memory will merge with every other bowl of soup they’ve had.”

They hadn’t nodded off yet.

“But even though we have the menu of the website, and Jim and Jean complain on Tripadvisor that the food is wacky, we still can’t seem to make people understand that we are not like other vegetarian restaurants.”

Don’t forget that this was 2009, vegetarian and vegan restaurants have changed a lot since then.

One of the PR People started taking notes.

“And of course we’re a vegetarian restaurant, but we don’t want that title hanging over us, it’s about the food, not the label.”

Donna telepathically sent me a message which said, ‘STOP’.

The leader of the three, the one with the fanciest title, confirmed that they knew exactly what we meant.

“This is why we’re here, we completely understand what you’re about. And we believe that you have something very interesting to offer, and interesting subjects, for us, are always easier to promote.”

I telepathically sent a message back to Donna, ‘These people are actually OK’.

Donna had a question, a good one, “But how do you promote us? What is the actual process?”

“Well, in your case, we’ll contact magazines and newspapers and tell them that you want to give them a recipe for a feature which they’re running. You know, something for Easter or a recipe based around a product which they’re featuring.”

Donna nodded, “And then you just credit the restaurant, is that right?”

“Yes that’s right. But more importantly, and this is how we can help with the image, we’ll invite well know people to come along for a meal.”

I was intrigued, “But why will they come along to us?”

“Because you’ll give it to them complimentary.”

I was confused, “So we give them a free meal and then what?”

“Then we tell the press. You know, so and so spotted at Vanilla Black. But we make sure we send the right people, to get the image right.”

This was fascinating, but it also seemed a bit naughty. They would be implying that the celebrity had popped in, but the reality was, they were invited with the offer of a freebie.

So I asked, “Does this happen all the time? Like, when we see a famous person in a bar drinking champagne, it’s set up?”

“Not always, but yes, very often.”

This was great. It felt as though we had been deceived by the press all these years, but on the other hand, now we knew the secret.

Without speaking to each other, Donna and I knew that this is what we needed. These people knew what they were talking about. And we could easily work with them.

But before I could ask the next question, Donna did instead, “This sounds perfect. And how much will it cost?”

Boss lady answered, “Well, we’ll designate one person to your case, probably Michelle, and we’ll allocate an amount of time to you each week.”

Blah Blah Blah, we’ll do this, we’ll do that. Yes but how much?

“And we’ll give you a weekly summary and we’ll Blah Blah Blah……….”

After another few minutes of waffling, the price was disclosed.

“Blah Blah Blah………and for all that, we charge three thousand pounds a month.”

My heart and my face sank. Donna didn’t, or couldn’t, say anything.

This was way too much money, if we paid three thousand pounds a month, how could we pay our regular bills. I changed my mind now, they were robbers.

They must have guessed, “Is that too much?” boss lady asked.

I jumped in, “Yes, way too much. We just don’t have that amount of spare cash.”

The response wasn’t what we expected, “Why don’t you have a think about it and tell us what you would be comfortable paying.”

Oh!

And at that, we told them we would have a think and get back to them. They left, we talked.

That was too much for us to fork out, but as Donna rightly stated, we had to do something, these people could help us, we needed to find a way.

If they could let the public know that we existed, hopefully we would have a restaurant which had diners every day, instead of just alternate days.

Donna had a suggestion, “Look, they asked what we’re happy to pay, why don’t we tell them, say, one thousand pounds a month?”

“A grand, they won’t go for that, no way, that’s too cheeky, even for us. Anyway, we can’t even afford a thousand pounds a month.”

But Donna thought it could work, “We should at least try. I know it’s much less than they quoted, but they can only say no.”

Donna had a point, “Yea true, if they think one thousand is too cheeky, they can just tell us to piss off. Yea, let’s do it.”

Donna handed me the phone, “There we go then.”

“What? Hang on, why do I have to do it? It’s your idea to insult them with such a low offer.”

“No no, it’s better if you do it.”

So I did. But for some very strange reason, and no idea why, I didn’t go in at one thousand pounds instead of three thousand pounds.

“Hi, it’s Andrew from Vanilla Black. Thanks for coming to see us today. Look, Donna and I have chatted, and we can’t afford to pay three thousand. But we can afford to pay………….….seven hundred pounds”

The boss lady replied, without any shock, disgust or surprise, “I’ll just put you on hold for a minute.”

Donna was looking at me and holding up her hands as if to say, ‘What are you doing?’

“Hi Andrew, sorry I just had to talk with a colleague. Yes, we can do seven hundred pounds a month. We’ll send over a contract and we can get started.”

I thanked her and put the phone down. Then I realised that Donna didn’t know what had been said because she couldn’t hear the call.

“Andrew, what did she say? Was she annoyed? How much do they want? And why did you say seven hundred pounds?”

“Donna, she said yes to seven hundred pounds a month.”

“What?”

Thanks for sticking with us. Catch up next week to see what a PR company does for that money.

Andrew and Donna

Here’s this weeks introduction. Hello.

Now then, come back to 2009 with us. The Black Eyed Peas are giving it Boom boom Pow and some MPs had been misusing their expenses. Yea, shock horror.

But something else was happening in that fancy London town, a new type of people had appeared on the scene. Hipsters. And these Hipsters were hanging around in an area of London known as, Shoreditch. This area was, and still is, very close to the financial section of London, The Square Mile. So why nobody noticed it’s potential previously is a mystery.

And because this area was a bit errrrr, rough, rents were low. And because rents were low, small independent businesses appeared, and some of these businesses were little coffee shops. Hipsters liked these independent joints.

And when the male Hipster was sat at his rickety table with milk foam clinging to his beard, he was eating avocado on sourdough toast. Yes, way back in 2009, and probably a little before that. Sometimes that Hipster would add a poached egg as well.

Now, our boy Ben, had been to these coffee shops on a number of occasions and brought back word of this avocado on toast.

We were intrigued, “What is it exactly Ben?”

Ben described it beautifully because he was well educated, “Errr, yea yea, they’re like, errr, sliced, yea sliced avocados, then they’re put on the toast.”

Skater Jane wasn’t impressed, “Is that it?”

“Errr, yea, literally, yea.”

We decided that we should be using avocado in the restaurant. Not on toast, because that would be too predictable, no following the crowd for us, and that wasn’t our style either.

Jane agreed to pick a few up the next day on the way into work.

And on that next day, Ben looked at the five avocados on the workbench, his face told us there was something wrong.

Jane looked put out, “What’s wrong with your face Ben, you said get some avocados, so I did.”

Jane’s directness always seemed to unnerve Ben, “Errrr, yea, errr cool, I mean, they’re a bit hard. You should have chosen errr, *ripe avocados.”

“Well you should have said so shouldn’t you.”

These avocados were like steel, it would take ages for them to ripen. But I had an idea.

“Hang on. What if we cooked them? Surely that would soften them?”

Jane like this, “Yea, let’s do it.”

They needed a very sharp knife, they were tough. Once peeled they were cut into wedges. We popped one of them into a saucepan and covered it in water. We brought it to a simmer, and yes, within a few minutes, it softened.

But it also discoloured, and tasted of nothing.

Next, Ben tried, but he added salt, sugar and lime juice to the water also.

This was much better, but there was still some discolouration.

Ben pondered, “Cool yea, but errr, they need more acidity.”

Jane suggested more lime, but Ben said no, he reckoned more lime would take over the flavour of the avocado.

Then I remembered something. We still had a bag of citric acid in the store room which we had bought from a health food shop in York.

Whenever I bought it, the woman behind the counter would ask me what I needed it for. The first few times I would prattle on about how we would add it to water as we peeled apples to stop them discolouring. Or that we used it to sharpen a sauce because using lemon added a flavour we didn’t want.

But she never seemed interested, so why did she ask? When I mentioned this to Donna, a former nurse, she told me that the lady was probably just following procedure. Apparently drug addicts use citric acid.

So we did a third experiment, again, salt, sugar and lime juice. And we added a little citric acid. Perfect.

And a new starter was introduced to the menu.

Warm Avocado, Brioche Crouton, Avocado and Coriander Purée and Candied Chilli Ketchup.

But because we were proper Hipsters now, we added a poached egg also.

We put the dish together and invited Donna and Tina to try it. But before they did, Donna wanted to show me an email. It was from a PR company.

This was nothing new, Public Relations companies were always contacting us. Apparently they could help get the word out that we existed, and we certainly needed that.

But this email was different, the person sending it had actually been to the restaurant, so they knew what we were about.

Donna had a mad idea, “Why don’t we speak to them?”

“What for Donna, they’ll charge a small fortune. And we don’t have any spare cash for PR, or even for ourselves.”

“But they might have some suggestions. We need to get busier, we can’t carry on like this, let’s see what they have to say.”

So we did just that, we replied and suggested that we meet with them. They came straight back and arranged to meet one morning a week later.

On the morning of their arrival, Donna and I were nervous. We were meeting people from a PR company, in London. Only big restaurant names and pop stars use a PR company. Little people like us, from Stockton on Tees, we didn’t deal with PR companies, we just peeled carrots and set tables. Scary stuff.

If you think we deserve a three quid coffee for scribbling this guff, that’s the button.

Ciffee

Their email mentioned that there would be three of them. But there was only two of us, we were outnumbered, already on the back foot.

I suggested that we ask Tina to join us and take notes, but really she would be there to even out the numbers and protect us.

Donna didn’t think this was a good idea.

The morning of the PR people arrived.

We organised some space in the reception area of the restaurant, ready for the arrival of the PR people.

Donna placed two chairs to one side for myself and her, and three chairs opposite for the PR people.

“Donna, make more space between those three chairs.”

“Why, that’s enough isn’t it?”

“No, they’ll have huge shoulder pads in their Gucci jackets, we don’t want them bashing into each other.”

“I don’t think so Andrew.”

“Mark my words, these people power dress you know.”

Donna rearranged the chairs a little to keep me happy.

Then Donna had a thought, “Water, we should have some glasses of water for them.”

“Right Donna, good idea, I’ll get a jug and stick some water in it.”

“Not a jug Andrew, we’ll give them bottled water.”

“Bottled water? That’s pushing the boat out a bit. We’re not made of money.”

But as Donna rightly pointed out, “We have to make a good impression, bring a bottle of still and a bottle of sparkling.”

“What, two bottles? Oh my god, this is stressful.”

Donna set up a little table to one side and polished three glasses. I arrived with the two bottles of water and placed them in the centre of the table.

We stood back and checked the PR people meeting area.

“Donna, maybe we should move their chairs a little further back. I bet all of them are over six foot tall.”

“Why will they be tall?”

“They’re business people Donna, they’re bound to be tall.”

Donna said that we should calm down, she was right. We needed to make a good impression, we had to be serious, we couldn’t look amateurish.

But above all, we needed to be busier, and maybe these people could help us. Even after trading in London for over a year, we were still battling to pay the bills. There were still days when we would see no diners for lunch or evening service.

And although we had space for 60 diners, we thought ourselves lucky if we managed to attract 25 customers on a Friday evening.

As we sat on our two allocated chairs and waited, Donna nudged me, “Andrew look, they’re here now, they’re at the door.”

OK, that’s enough, catch us next week for another story. And thanks for sticking with us.

Donna and Andrew

*Once avocados are picked from the tree it takes around 7-10 days for them to soften. so if they are like little bombs, give them a few days by the window.

Hi. How are you etc? Could you do us a favour, if you have a friend who may be interested in reading these Posts, could you send them the link and tell them to Subscribe. Then they’ll thank you forever.

Righto, on we go.

If you read last weeks Post you will know that the story is still in 2009, we had battled through Valentine’s Day and I had high blood pressure.

Well now it’s March, and nothing else can go wrong.

It’s a Monday morning and we arrive to the restaurant at 9:45am. Tina Terminator is already there, she’s always early. Even when we’ve arrived earlier, Tina is there.

“Do you sleep here Tina?”

“Just open the door stupid. There’s work to do.”

And when we were inside, we locked the door and were just about to go down stairs and make a coffee when, there was a banging on the door.

It was Skater Jane, so Donna unlocked the door for her, “Morning Jane, OK?”

“Morning Donna. It’s bastard freezing out there.”

Jane went to get changed into her whites, Donna checked voice messages on the answer phone, and Tina made coffee whilst also polishing cutlery.

I unloaded the veg delivery from the delivery room and took it downstairs.

Ben arrived a few minutes later and gave me a helping hand.

Myself, Jane and Ben started a little prep and chatted about the weekend.

Tina delivered a mug of coffee for each of us.

Ben tried to involve Tina in the conversation, “Errrr, yea, Tina, cool, thanks. Did you, errrr, do anything exciting over the weekend?”

“I haven’t got time to talk”, and off she marched.

Skater Jane told us about a new cocktail bar that she had found. Apparently, this place was ‘banging out some sick gear’.

And Ben had been to some underground nightclub with his mates. That was also ‘sick’.

And I felt old.

If you wanna send us three quid to buy a coffee to share, that’s the button.

A Coffee

As we peeled, chopped and roasted, Jane asked me a question, which by the tone of her voice, she’d wanted to ask for a while.

“Hey mate, daft question, but why don’t we have proper recipes? Ya know, like all printed out, and put in a file?”

Now, Skater Jane was asking a very good question. Of course we did have recipes, but they weren’t exactly in an orderly fashion.

And if I’m being honest, a part of me enjoys a bit of chaos.

“What do you mean Jane, we do have proper recipes, they’re in that wallet. You use them everyday.”

“Yea mate, but they’re all just thrown in a clump, it takes ten minutes to find a recipe. I was making crystallised coriander last week and by the time I found the recipe the coriander that I’d picked had wilted.”

Ben chipped in, “Errr, yea Jane, you need to be errr, more organised. Find the recipe first, then pick through the coriander, yea.”

“You what ben? That doesn’t change the fact that it took ages to find a recipe.”

I defended myself, “I get you Jane, but we just bundled them up when we closed the York restaurant. Then we just added to them as time went on, and we never got around to sorting them.”

“Yea I noticed fella, but some of them are crumpled, others are ripped. It’s difficult to see the words.”

Ben helped me, “Errr, yea, this beetroot terrine recipe is cool though.”

But Skater Jane pointed something out, “Ben, it’s written on the back of an invoice.”

Jane was right, from the moment we opened, in 2004, Donna and I were Jack of all trades. And because we were completely hands on, there was no need to have such structured systems.

If someone could’t read a recipe, they could just ask me, and I would know the amounts. Same with Donna, if Tina had a query, Donna had the answer.

We didn’t need written lists, we didn’t need stock lists, we didn’t need an order of service. Anyone could could ask us and we had the answer.

But we knew that when we became busier, and we knew it had to happen some day, we couldn’t continue holding all that information in our heads.

In the meantime, I had a quick fix solution.

When the previous restaurant owners had fled from the building, they left lots of stationary behind. So I took three plastic A4 clear document wallets and brought them to the kitchen.

“Ben, here, take these wallets and use them to separate the recipes into starters, mains and desserts. Then just write S, M and D on each one with your Sharpie.”

Ben quickly rifled through the cardboard wallet and grabbed handfuls of recipes. Then he stuffed them into the correct wallets, and drew the corresponding letters on each plastic wallet.

I was pleased with Ben’s work, “Smart Ben, now we know where to find each recipe.”

Ben was chuffed, he held up the Mains wallet to show Jane.

Skater Jane stood with her mouth open, “Mate, they’re just stuffed in, it’s a mess.”

“Errr, yea yea. No. It’s cool. You can even see though the clear wallet so you get a heads up of where something is.”

Jane shook her head, “You’re a pair of bastards, you really are.”

The streamlining and organising did eventually happen, but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, Donna was having her weekly gripe with the laundry company.

But if you’re not from the restaurant world, you’ll need to understand the laundry situation.

In the main, the napkins and tablecloths are owned by the laundry company, not the restaurant. And they allocate an amount to each establishment depending on how busy you are.

They drop off the clean laundry on an agreed day and you stick them on a shelf. Then you use what you need, and when they’ve been used, they are bagged up and the laundry company takes them, maybe at the end of the week, and cleans them. It’s a laundry circle.

But this is the important part. Those napkins and tablecloths are allocated to you only. They are never sent to another restaurant, and linen from other restaurants is never sent to you.

Allegedly!

But the reality is as follows………

“Tina, is Donna upstairs at reception?”

“Yes, she talking to the stupid laundry company.”

Here we go again.

“Yes you can help, twenty of the tablecloths you’ve sent are stained. We need them replacing.”

“No they can’t be stained, they were only washed last night.”

“They are stained, come over and I’ll show you.”

“Well you must have dirtied them, it wasn’t us.”

“How could we do anything to them, they only arrived this morning.”

“Maybe one of your staff dropped them on the floor.”

“Oh right, yes. And did they rip them also?”

“What do you mean, ripped?”

“Some have holes in them, some have ripped hems and a couple have torn corners.”

“That can’t be right, they’re brand new. You’ll have to pay to have them replaced.”

“No we won’t, they even look old. They must be from another restaurant.”

“Impossible. You only ever get your own laundry back. They’re never from someone else’s stock.”

This happened every week. We were sent dirty and ripped laundry, or there wasn’t the correct amount, or they didn’t arrive.

And every week this guy would argue with Donna and tell her that she was wrong.

And Donna was convinced that this guy was one of those who did’t like being told that he was wrong, by a woman.

So the next week, I phoned him to complain about being twenty three napkins short. And guess what? He told me he would send them over as soon as he could.

So Donna was right, this chap wasn’t going to be dictated to, by a woman.

Donna decided that it was time to look for a new laundry company.

Next Monday, when it was time to make the regular call to tell the guy that something was missing, or ripped, Donna told him that she would no longer be using his services.

“We cant continue to use your services, every week there’s a problem.”

This bloke was livid.

“You what. Don’t you ring me up and tell me what you’re going to do.”

“Look, we’ll give you a months notice, then after that we’ll be using someone else.”

“Oh will you now, you’ll give me a months notice. Who do you think you are? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, I’m gonna come to your restaurant on Saturday night and rip the cloths from the tables, right in front of customers.”

“OK, then that’s us finished is it?”

“Yes, I’ll take everything back. See you on Saturday night, about 8pm.”

Donna came to the kitchen to tell us all what he said.

Tina Terminator was furious, “This guy is stupid.”

Skater Jane was annoyed, “He’s bonkers. Someone needs to give him a slap.”

Ben had something to say, “Err, yea yea, mental man.”

And I asked, “So we’re finally rid of him?”

“Yes, and he said he’ll be here on Saturday evening to rip the cloths from diners tables.”

Ben was puzzled, “Errr, but Donna, errrr, did you tell him that we’re not open on Saturdays?”

“Nope.”

Thanks for reading this. See you next week for more fun and happiness.