Part 51. Elevation

Crocs in the kitchen, stupid people in the restaurant and tomatoes in grenadine.

Hey, if you hit the Like button, Donald Trump will pose semi naked in an M&S shop window near you.

Okey dokey, we’re back to stories. Quick recap for those who miss episodes now and again, you know who you are.

We had been to London for a day and a half to see how far our money could go. Would we be able to buy a restaurant on Bond Street, or a hut in Hackney? Well, fortunately it seemed that we could afford something in the middle of that. And that commercial estate agent who visited us in his sporty sports car told us we could get a few bob for our place.

So, if we wanted to, we could relocate to London.

But did we actually want to. I mean, it wasn’t that bad was it? Yes we were working fifteen or sixteen hours a day, but in a sick and twisted way, we enjoyed it.

And people liked us, well most did. And we liked them. Well, most of them.

And the team we worked with, they were our friends. We knew when their birthdays were, we’d met some of their parents and friends. We went out for drinks with them.

Basically, and maybe this sounds a bit sad, we were realising that this restaurant was our life. Even our days off were spent focusing on mini restaurant projects.

We went to other restaurants for inspiration. We looked around shops for new plates and glasses. We roamed markets, obsessing over ingredients.

It’s funny how you can be at a market, look at some tomatoes, chat for ten minutes to each other, then have a new dish created for the menu.

“Oh those tomatoes look good Andrew.”

“Yea they do don’t they. I wonder if anyone has ever done a dish just based around a tomato?”

“Probably, didn’t we see a dish with tomato and grenadine somewhere?”

“Ah yes, can’t remember where though. Actually, could we poach a really good tomato in grenadine. I wonder how that would taste.”

“And basil, maybe a basil element with it.”

And so it was,

Grenadine Poached Tomato With Basil Gel And Garlic Croutons

Sounds like a bit of a dull dish now, but twenty years ago, people thought it was something which the space shuttle had brought back.

You know what, three quid buys half a cup of coffee these days, if you think we deserve half a cup of coffee, that’s the button.

So you see, we had a nice little restaurant which we enjoyed having, and a great team. To lose it all and move to London didn’t make sense. The upheaval, the cost, a city we didn’t know and a chance that it didn’t work. There were risks.

But you know what, if everyone in the world chose to stay put, if everyone stood still when faced with a lump of effort, nothing would ever happen.

Richard Branson used to sell records (that’s a disc of plastic which you could put on a machine and music flowed into your lugs) through the post, many moons ago. However, there was a postal strike, so him and his buds were a bit stuck. Now, they could have sat around and waited for the strike to end, that would have been the easiest option. But they didn’t, to keep the sale of records going, they opened a record shop.

And another, and another…….

And we decided to move to London. We would have the money from the restaurant sale, and Vanilla Black worked in York, so it would fly in London.

So the wheels started to roll. We contacted Mercedes Man, the commercial agent, and asked him to start the process. He said someone would come around a week later to do some measurements, they didn’t do pictures then, the internet was probably still in black and white.

But, and this bit was difficult, should we tell the team? If we did, and the restaurant didn’t sell for a year, it would feel uncomfortable. If we didn’t tell them, it also felt uncomfortable, they were our friends.

So we stuck in the middle, we decided to say nothing and wait until there was some interest in the restaurant. That could be in six months time, or six days.

In the meantime, our feet were hurting, that’s what happens when you are on them for fifteen hours a day. But fortunately, a new product was on the market around this time. A product which would allow your feet to walk on cushions. A product which allowed a constant airflow to your feet. Plus, and this is important, this product was the height of fashion. We had to have this.

Crocs!*

I bought a pair first, just to see if they lived up to the hype. They were so exclusive back then, we had to go to the fancy designer shop in Low Petergate, Sarah Coggles. And they weren't cheap, it was about twenty years ago and they were thirty quid. We thought that was a lot for spongy flip flops.

But you know what, these things were a gift from the Gods. Your burning, aching, throbbing feet sank into them. The holes allowed a constant air conditioned breeze trickling around your toes, and every step was a bouncing pleasure. It’s as if we were elevated.

Donna bought a pair a week later, but she could only wear hers when there were no diners were in the restaurant. If she wore them during service, we would have looked like a vegetarian restaurant.

Then a week later, Lozza bought a pair of Crocs. But nobody else in the restaurant did. Bud said they were ugly, Briggy said they looked weird. Tricky Vicki wasn’t fussed, although with her problem feet, she probably bought some a year or so later.

But more fool them, they stood by and watched us walk on our mattresses, while they plodded along on their shoes which were made of oak and lead.

However, the Crocs weren't perfect. Those straps got in the way, bloody annoying. And sometimes they were a bit skiddy on wet floors.

And, as we found out a few times, if you spilled something, like a glug of boiling water, those air holes easily let that hot water soak into your feet.

But we forgave them, Crocs were our friends, they made a sixteen hour stand seem like an eight hour stand. If you work in an office and don’t get what that feels like, go to work and throw your chair in a skip, whack up the thermostat, then do your job.

Oh yea, and one more downfall. At the end of the shift, putting your regular shoes back on felt like a punishment. Because your feet had been in dreamland all day, it only made you realise how much of a nightmare your outside shoes actually were.

‘Hang on” we hear you say, “Why not just wear them all the time then?”

No way, we weren't wearing those ugly bastards in public.

Look at those pink ‘crocs’, they’re only 4 euros.

And all the while we were introducing new ideas and dishes to the menu. It was important to keep going in an upwards direction. Even if we were leaving and moving to London, that didn't mean that we could let standards slip.

But wait. During this time, were we changing peoples minds about vegetarian food? Did people understand what we were doing? Did people realise that vegetarian food wasn't just a plate of dusty lentils?

Well, a lot understood what we were doing. Meat eaters were coming to us and telling us that they were there because they wanted something different, not necessarily because we were a vegetarian restaurant.

One regular customer said to us, and he was a meat eater, “You could take the menus from the other restaurants and swap them all over, nobody would notice. But your menu is unique to you.”

Good point fella.

But yes, there were still those who would have a little snigger because it was a vegetarian restaurant. Not sure why, maybe there was a joke on the telly in 1978 about a vegetarian diet and it stuck.

“Oh hey, I’ll be farting like a good un after this veggie crap.”

Guffaw! Guffaw!

“But hang on mate, you had a cheese and onion toasty for your lunch and that’s vegetarian.”

And the silence would fall upon the Jim Davidson wannabe.

I wonder if these types went to a pizza restaurant and said, “Oh hey, I’ll be looking like Super Mario after all this pizza.”

Chortle! Chortle!

Probably.

And about a week later we had a visit from the commercial agent, and that’s that, we were for sale.

So all we had to do now was wait to see if anyone would want to view the restaurant. You know, like when you sell your house, you’re not sure how it’s going to go. Will there be a line of people knocking on the door, or will your house be the one which is still for sale in the summer, but the pictures are so old there’s images of the back garden covered in snow.

But within a few days the agent called, “Alright mate, we’ve got a young couple asking about your restaurant, can we arrange a viewing?”

“Really? But it’s only just gone on the market.”

“Aye, good eh?”

“Errrr, yea, that’s good. Is Friday OK for them?”

“Bloody hell Donna, we’ve got a viewing already.”

“Really? We better start looking for a restaurant site then.”

“Why?’

“What if they put an offer in?”

I hadn’t thought of that. My mind had stopped at viewing.

“Oh yea. Shit, this could actually happen.”

We hit the panic button.

We would have to organise viewings for London properties. What about the team? Should we book a train to London, or should we drive down. We needed to tell our solicitor. Oh yea, and the accountant.

What about somewhere to live in london. We hadn't even considered that. And what about our house. We would have to sell it. We hadn’t thought of that either.

Oh no, it was moving too fast. We couldn’t do all this. There wasn't enough time.

But hang on, the viewers might not even like the place. Why all the panic?

Right, that’s enough, catch us next week to find out what happened, or what didn’t happen.

Thanks for reading this blurb.

Donna and Andrew

(We still have those Crocs by the way)

*Crocs were initially designed to be a boating shoe. In 2002, Crocs made their debut at a boat show in Florida. All two hundred pairs sold out.

We still have those Crocs from all those years ago. But we just use them for decorating, honestly.