Part 86 Bonkers

Recipes, tablecloths and a slapped face.

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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.

Sometimes Tina be a little curt.

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.

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.”

Thanks to Marian for sending this old business card.

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.