Part 22. China Girl

DIY Sunday, vending machines and Buckaroo.

Before we start, could you do us a tiny favour? Just stick a like on it at the the end, it makes our Keanu feel loved.

Here we go, Part 22. Where does the time go? Don’t answer. Anyway, remember, for the sake of the story, that we are way back in 2005, around April time, and Peter Kay was singing Is This The Way To Amarillo.

So things are going well at Vanilla Black, it just felt right. Tuesday to Saturday were our opening hours, we had a good team of people who were on our side from the get go, they understood our approach to the food and the service. Well, apart from AWOL Cheryl.

Plus, when you’re working in a busy restaurant, it almost feels like you've had a night out, as well as the diners.

And, every day we were learning more and more about being in business.

Our house sale was underway and going well, so in a few months we would be York residents, that meant we would instantly be posh. But first up, we needed to find a house to buy in York, we’ll come to that in time.

So, for starters this week, the importance of staff food. But, however, if you work in an office and take butties and a crumpled bag of Walkers to work, you need a bit of an insight into how it works in restaurants.

Generally, the kitchen makes a staff meal for the rest of the team, something filling and simple. This could be a casserole, a lasagna, jacket potatoes or maybe a curry. Basically, the type of food served at Beanbag Cafe.

Some places just use the food from the restaurant menu, that’s easier, but it eats into your prep. In the York restaurant we used dishes from the restaurant menu, there weren't many of us, so it didn't affect prep too much, plus, isn't it important for staff to understand the food they are serving?

Over the years this changed, the tasting of dishes became more structured, more like a proper training session. This gave front of house more knowledge and it was great to hear them giving diners recommendations on their favourite dishes and discussing different elements on the plate.

Also, the practice of staff eating from the menu was useful for us to see their reaction, especially to new dishes.

You see, chefs eat food differentially to civilians, they’re often assessing, as opposed to eating.

So when the front of house team ate from the restaurant menu, they saw it from a different angle, they ate like a diner. This was free market research, this was useful to us. 

Many times, it’s been a front of house member who’s suggested an amazing idea, not a chef.

However, and we can’t name names, we’ve heard some interesting stories over the years about staff food and the set up.

For example, a particular large, well known London hotel used to sell sandwiches to the staff from a vending machine. Apparently there was never time for a proper break, no time to pop to M&S or the Sainsbury’s Local, so the option was the vending machine.

And it was the kitchen staff who made the sandwiches for the vending machine. The kitchen staff weren’t allowed to eat anything from the kitchen, but they could however, buy the sandwiches. So, make the sandwich, put it in the vending machine, then go around the front of the vending machine, and buy the sandwich you just made. So in theory, the hotel was making a profit from the staff meals. What a good idea.

Another one. Spoke to a chef who worked at a Michelin star restaurant and he told us that they weren’t allowed to buy any extra ingredients for staff meals. Nor were they allowed to use the stock from the restaurant. So what’s left? How can you make a meal with no food? Well, whoever was making staff fodder had to scrounge odds and ends from the different sections, off cuts and trimmings, and hope that they had enough to make a meal. Imagine, onion skin curry.

One more, you’ll love this. In York, a new member of the team started working with us one evening. At the end of the shift we asked if she wanted to join everyone else in the kitchen and get some food.

Before joining everyone else, she asked if the food they were eating was leftovers.

It was an odd question. We explained that it wasn’t actually left over, just hadn’t been ordered by diners.

So she asked the question again, but in a different format, “Is it left over from diners dirty plates?”

At first we felt insulted, as if we would do that. But then she explained, in the last restaurant she worked at, the team were only allowed to eat food which was remaining on diners dirty plates after clearing the table. Isn't that lovely?!

If you’re enjoying reading this guff, and fancy buying us a £3 coffee to share, that would be nice.

So that’s a basic overview of how staff food works in the world of hospitality. Now get back to your Wotsits.

OK let’s crack on to another subject. Now something which wasn’t fun for us was paper work. We hated it, still do. Some people are happy sitting at a desk, surrounded by scraps of crumpled paper, staplers, post it notes and a calculator. They seem to actually enjoy sitting on the same seat, hour after hour, writing things down, putting numbers in boxes and sticking paper together with paperclips. Donna and I didn’t, and still don’t.

So when Sunday arrived, our day of paper torture, we would try to find reasons to put it off. That’s stupid, it still had to be done. But we hid from it anyway.

“Oh look Donna, the kettle needs descaling.”

Donna, “So it does. You should definitely do that before anything else.”

“Oh Donna, look, the sugar granules need counting, that’s very important.”

Anything reason we could find, we used them all.

However, as is always the case when there’s a job you don’t like doing, we found a brilliant excuse not to do it.

It came about like this. As the restaurant was busy, the inevitable happened. The walls were getting scuffed, the wooden table tops needed attention, the floor stain was wearing off the bespoke wooden flooring.

Now, before we opened the restaurant, we made a list of things we would always keep on top of. We visited many restaurants which had only been open for a short time, but looked tired after six months, we didn’t want that to happen to Vanilla Black. So we promised ourselves we would always keep the place looking in the best shape possible. We wanted our place to look cared for.

And so it was born, DIY Sunday.

This was basically us going to the restaurant on a Sunday when it was closed and catching up on maintenance. Touching up the white walls, rubbing Danish oil into the tables, staining the floor and fixing toilet seats. It was glorious, we were happier doing that than adding up how much petty cash was spent during the week, writing cheques to suppliers or totalling up credit card receipts. Give us DIY Sunday any day of the week.

As time went on, we even started asking the team to keep a list of anything which needed attention. That way, the excuse was always there, and we had to be seen to address the jobs as the bosses. Pretty smart eh?

This welcomed list would keep us away from the mounting pile of paper on the dining room table at home for quite a while. It came to a point when we became blind to it, it started to look like a piece of furniture.

“Hey, that’s a nice sofa, is it from DFS?’

“It’s not a sofa, it’s credit card receipts.”

And we kept DIY Sunday with us for as long as the restaurant was open, it was especially useful when we were in London as the building always needed something doing to it, it was a monster of a place.

Eventually, even the team started referring to these very special days as ‘DIY Sunday’. And many times, kitchen porters would ask if they could join us, kitchen porters seemed to enjoy DIY for some reason. It was great, once a month, or every six weeks, the restaurant would get a spruce up, no scuffs or chipped woodwork in sight.

And you know what, when we arrived back home, splattered in paint, and with Danish oil matted into our hair, the paper work was still there.

Now, something a little controversial here, toilets, women's toilets in particular. They were ALWAYS on the DIY Sunday list. And generally every other day of the week.

OK, someone out there will strongly disagree with this observation, but you’re wrong, so here goes. If a toilet seat was broken, if a toilet roll holder had fallen off the wall, if a flush handle snapped, it was nearly always in the women's toilets. Why?

And why would there be six metres of toilet paper strewn around the floor, why was the sink overflowing with hot water? Why did the door lock look as if someone had taken a crowbar to it, how did seven kilo of paper towels end up in the toilet?

It was like Mötley Crüe had snook in through the fire exit and thrown a party, got a bit bored, then invited the lads from Napalm Death and Slayer over, just to spice things up a bit.

My proposed solution to this was to take pictures of the mens toilets, frame them, then hang them in the women's toilets to show the lovely ladies how a rest room should look.

But yea, women's toilets were always the worst.

Right, last thing. As you may remember, our team structure went something like this……

Our Keanu- Sous chef (which kinda means second chef, well there was only two of us anyway), front of house hero and washer upper.

Tricky Vicki- Front of house, chatterbox and dish developer.

Blackhead- Saturday front of houser and an absolute example of determination.

Tony Cannelloni- didn't really exist, but one hell of a grafter.

Oh yea, and me and Donna.

But we were short, especially in the kitchen. Our Keanu and I were doing all the prep, running service and washing up.

Washing up was a killer, we couldn't touch a pot until we’d finished service. I mean, Donna and Co did the glasses at the front of the restaurant, but everything else was dumped in the kitchen sink throughout the shift.

Now, even though we had enough cutlery to service all three of the armed forces, we always ran out of knives, forks and spoons. And we always ran out of plates towards the end of the night, so me and our Keanu had to wash up to keep everything replenished, at the same time as cooking, burning ourselves, and swearing.

But it made no difference to The Great Wall of China**, it was still there.

So after our Keanu and I had sent out the last few dishes, we would turn around to face the sink. It was awful, we couldn't even start to wash up until we’d dismantled the porcelain mountain. It was like someone had been playing Buckaroo from 6pm until 11pm.

I mean, it looked like Primark on a Saturday afternoon in December.

Just for those of you who haven’t ever been to Primark. That’s a fabric version of the washing up pile.

So to start off with, we had to play Jenga for twenty minutes before we could wash a single item. And then we had to put it all somewhere so we could start. We always knew we would be there for a long time, up to our elbows in suds and misery, blaming Tony Cannelloni as we struggled on.

No, actually more like this.

What we needed was someone to wash up as the shift went along, someone who could keep us supplied with eating irons and plates so we didn’t have to keep breaking away from the stove. Someone who could present an empty sink to us at the end of the night, nothing left apart from a wet cloth and half a bottle of Fairy.

Let us introduce the saviour, Bud!

And there we go, catch up next time so we can tell you about Bud and other daft stuff.

Cheers for reading, and listening. Andrew and Donna

*This may not actually but true, but I’m sure that the song, China Girl was written by both David Bowie and Iggy Pop. So apparently, when poor Iggy was a bit down on his luck, Mr Bowie chose China Girl to be released, which therefore meant that Iggy received some royalties and could afford to eat again.

**Not to scale.

A random picture of toasted marzipan custard from our cookbook.