I have often been
heard lamenting my own neglect of this blog in the past year and a bit, so, my
apologies for taking so long to do something about it. I’ve had quite a year,
biting off, if not more than I can chew, then certainly enough to stop me being
able to talk. The last many of you will have heard from me, I was freshly
returned from Paris having been filling my days with macaron missions, baguette
brilliance and pastry passions. My Gallic adventure taught me a lot about
myself, not least being that somewhere, there is a career in food for me to
knead into shape. So when I returned I had the good fortune to hear about,
apply for and win a new post with my old employer running a training cafe in
their flagship centre.
I hope you’re strapped
in and ready for a whistlestop tour of my past year in the food industry to
make up for my silence. It has certainly been a bumpy ride and regardless of
whether I’m driving or not, I remain in the dark not only about the
destination, but sometimes also about the general direction I’m travelling in. There
are no emergency exits.
Here we go…
August 2012
First day of the
Olympics.
Also first day in my
new job managing a training café within a centre designed to help the
unemployed back in to work through a variety of skills programmes and
vocational qualifications.
In Stratford.
Attached to the
Olympic park.
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| A View from the top on another 'quiet' August 2012 day in Stratford. |
My first two weeks are
spent getting to grips with the challenges of a commute to and from the Olympic Park, as
well as those facing the café as a business, which include an embargo on
advertising outside of the building, a high proportion of young people on low
income from one of the most ethnically diverse London boroughs and revenue
targets that can never be achieved without several other income streams. I earn
my Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate and get to grips with flashy equipment that
has been gathering dust for a year before recruiting my role seemed like a good
plan. No coffees are made for two weeks until I manage to persuade the airport-style
security in place in my building that I have no intention of manufacturing a
bomb from the espresso machine cleaning powder. I sell a few kitkats and cokes
that have been bought in from the local cash&carry and start making demands
for useful equipment like a stock cupboard, a hob, a freezer…
No suppliers are in
place so I build these contacts from scratch and negotiate shopping trolleys full of stock across the bridge to the Olympic village while juggling running the café,
writing a café manual and dealing with stock spoilage issues inevitable not
only due to the low levels of traffic but also from nightmare delivery logistics
due to the Olympics. And then the Paralympics.
September 2012
The centre’s cleaners
hand over to me full cleaning responsibilities for the café and I become even
more militant about access to the kitchen and cleaning logs. Café staff uniform
is organised even though I remain the only staff member, and my Mum is put in
charge of sourcing thread to match the logo and getting them sewn up. I win the
fight for the e-POS till from the training shop to replace the corner-store
style carbon printer till system and get to grips with programming the
expanding menu onto it. I quickly learn to triple-check my shopping list
against a delivery note and the delivery itself, that relying on others to sign
off cash requests inevitably leads to significant personal spend and that non
coffee-drinkers can still make a reasonable latte under my instruction.
THE FREEZER ARRIVES!
And in my infinite
wisdom I decide to fill it with ice and smoothie fruits.
I also acquire a hob
and can stop using the combi-oven to melt things.
Having become a feeder
with my reliable homemade flapjacks and banana bread it is decided to launch
the café in an official capacity with a MacMillan coffee morning. A week of
evenings alone in the ‘office’ late at night in an icing-sugar fog produces a
dazzling display of cupcakes, brownies, cookies, biscuits and muffins,
especially considering they’ve all been made in a combi-oven that barely fits
two trays of cupcakes. Nearly everything sells out and a handsome cheque is
sent to the charity.
Sadly, due to an
oversight, the photos and quotes about this never make it into the company
magazine.
By this point, it has
become clear that the original design for the café and the use to which it has
been intended by the Powers That Be are somewhat at odds with each other. A
catering space with a two-shelf combi oven, no integrated hob and one food prep
work surface was never designed to be a fully functioning bakery-café.
Especially one made of white surfaces blemished by the merest whisper of a
caffeine spillage. This notion is quickly put out of mind while catering orders
start coming in thick and fast, meaning I find myself at times juggling running
the café, baking for the cake sale and catering for a business lunch for 40.
And just like that, the advert for an Apprentice is finalised.
October 2012
The menu expands
according to customer feedback and a large volume of multi-portion soup pouches
are bought in. Spare space in the freezer is rapidly filled with part-baked
rolls, pizzas, sausage rolls and batch-baked cakes. Surprisingly, customers
don’t really enjoy waiting for their sausage rolls to be baked to order. Soups
sell at a rate of about a portion a day resulting in huge wastage. Apprentice
applications are not hugely forthcoming to start with but finally result in a
few in-depth interviews and day-long work trials before selection of what I
hope to shape into my mini-me.
Loyalty cards arrive
to encourage the drinking of proper coffees and with the help of with a good number
of freebies, these begin to take off. My colleague on reception burns through
almost a card a week from this point on and we quickly develop a routine few
understand where the response ‘Yes Please!’ is elicited either from simply
saying his name or by asking ‘Mental?’, otherwise known as his daily three-shot
latte. On a bad day, it’s time for a ‘Totally Insane’ four-shot. The arrival of
a chalk board sees me getting creative drawing suspect-looking chocolate chip
cookies in what soon appears to be permanent marker on the price board. I
nervously hand over the daily routine of getting the staff hot drink station
set up to the centre manager and leave the country for a few days to indulge in
the gastronomic and oenological delights of San Sebastian and Rioja. Bar a
massive clean up on my return, nothing goes horrendously wrong.
November 2012
Mini-me starts, and
not a moment too soon. I am left to get by while she completes a two-week
hospitality training programme to get her covered for food safety. By her third
full day in the café I am having to deal with the guilt of abandoning her to
customers while still so ‘green’ while I prepare lunch platters for 40 people.
Mercifully, this is an otherwise quieter month, allowing me to concentrate on getting
mini-me fully inducted into the company and café ways of working, set up with
the best and most relevant units for her apprenticeship and experienced in as
many aspects of café life as possible.
Which is just as well, because
torrential rain in the West Country means I am stranded, albeit creating a
lovely long weekend with my partner, and off from work for the 30-person
meeting that needs catering for one fateful Monday at the end of the month. She
takes it all in her stride as though she had been taught like a pro.
December 2012
A trainer from the
coffee company arrives and changes my cappuccinos, for the better, forever. Not
only do I learn that coffee bean quality deteriorates months before its Best
Before date but I finally achieve a silky mouthfeel to my steamed milk that I
still believe only a few independent coffee bars can match. The resulting
stronger sales mean that the till float has to be increased for the first time
and the café’s image as a ‘tuck shop’ begins, slowly, to wane.
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| Got milk? |
Now that I can do latte art properly I entertain a couple of requests. Admittedly, my latte boobs need a bit more work.
Increased sales mean the first signs that the café was not designed to be much more than a training facility begin to show. Aesthetic but un-hardy cupboards begin to suffer, the very real need for increased storage and worktop space is demonstrated during the chaos of a lunch rush and the domestic-style dishwasher breaks down. In the absence of any other solution I am also forced by necessity to buy a second microwave to cope with the volume of staff lunches that need heating, mine being the only food preparation space in the centre.
Ahead of the Christmas do, a secret stash of wine is passed to me to chill in the fridges. Nobody remembers to count them first. I call it my Christmas bonus.
The best day of work this month comes on that peaceful day between Christmas and New Year when most staff are still on leave. I come to work in my chef’s trousers and bake all day, undisturbed, content in my quest to stock the freezer with homemade cakes for the next few weeks.
January 2013
Slow sales at the
start of the month due to post-Christmas cashflow issues and good New Year
resolution intentions are predictably short-lived. My cakes are blamed for the
lack of will for a good proportion of my colleagues. I make use of any quieter
time brought about by these good intentions to address improvements necessary
to café layout, security, maintenance and equipment. I start investigating
takeaway packaging now that interest from the other office on our floor has
coincided with a noticeable number of un-returned plates.
Mini-me’s diligence at
working on her Apprenticeship units cannot change the fact that my ambitions
for her were slightly out of her reach, as well as not being entirely feasible
given the café’s setup, and her programme is adjusted to become more
achievable. Keen to ensure I support her the best way I can, I start a teaching
qualification which also gives her the opportunity to run the café alone one
afternoon a week. We get the year off to a good start by logging many of her
daily tasks to provide evidence for her portfolio and I get her creating
adverts for some of the café’s products.
I manage to forget to
turn to page two of a refreshments booking form for a meeting of important
delegates and have to leg it to M&S to buy sandwiches, cut them in half and
present them on a platter once they point out lunch is half an hour late.
Thanks to marathon training I manage to do this without looking too much like
I’m about to pass out.
February 2013
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| Perfect Valentine's Day fare... |
I learn that if you
add red glitter to stuff, people will buy it in the name of Valentine’s Day. Likewise
if you stick a chocolate-dipped strawberry on top. Or pink buttercream. Or make
anything with edible hearts.
Colleagues start to
notice my London Marathon sponsorship forms papered around the centre and some
deduce a link between this and my occasional agony whilst walking.
After much wonderment
and many random mid-afternoon outbursts of ‘did-you-know’-isms resulting from
researching McGee’s Food and Cooking,
I complete my teaching course by delivering a training session to my peers all
about the wonder that is the humble egg. I continue to this day to hope that
their apparent enthusiasm was not solely caused by the peer-criticism
arrangement in place for passing the course. In return, I have sat through a
training session on the Offside rule and learnt how to bellydance. Partner
weeps with joy.
March 2013
Five months in to her
apprenticeship, mini-me’s performance starts to become a little erratic. Now
fully into the swing of things, tinges of boredom are beginning to set in,
resulting in an increase in lateness and extended lunch hours. Mini-me and I
have a meeting to address her dissatisfaction at having to repeatedly carry out
cleaning tasks, sometimes while I get on with accounting or liaising with
suppliers. Along with my own manager, mini-me is given the sort of short-course
in ‘Life 101’ that I wish I had had by her age:
- Life is
unfair.
- In order
to achieve your ambitions, you will have to work hard, and start from the
ground upwards.
- Nobody is
going to be your salesman for you like you can be for yourself.
- When you
are given a rare opportunity to work in a supportive and nurturing environment,
utilise, but don’t abuse.
The café caters for
its first evening event, providing a selection of hot and cold canapés and wine
for 50 people, and we work well as a team. The bruschetta I stayed late to prep
the night before is a particular success and I spend the rest of the week
devising ways to use up two kilos of wholegrain mustard. Chocolate-dipped
strawberries are reprised as cake toppings to use up the excess from my slight
overcatering issue.
The microwave breaks
through the sheer volume of staff food being reheated in quick succession
during the lunch service. The small mercy is the time I can drag out not
reheating any more while I await the recalled receipt from head office archives
for a replacement. I am amazed at how much emotion this stirs in my colleagues,
as well as how many of them manage to actually have a lunch break.
April 2013
Most of this month is
taken up by running, carb loading, and preparing for the Marathon fundraising
bakesale. Themed bakes such as Rocky road bars, cheesey feet biscuits and
‘Marathon’ brownies go down well and help me to exceed my fundraising target. The
fact I broke the office printer by trying to print my sparkly glitter iron-on
name transfer at work almost goes by unnoticed. Ottolenghi’s carrot cake
becomes the stuff of café legend. The sale does at least make it into the staff
newsletter this time, but not before a minor dispute between accounts and
marketing over who gave it the original go-ahead in the first place, making me
wonder for the merest second why I bothered. I have my first family visitors to
the café to support the sale, and get another glimpse of just how helpful
advice from a third party can be when you are so immersed in running the show
you lose sight of what it’s like to be in the audience.
The dishwasher breaks
down. Mini-me and I both quickly arrive at the conclusion that washing
everything up by hand in one sink is not as much fun as Fairy adverts would have
you believe, nor does it make your hands as soft as your face, unless you are
House. On my day off work after the marathon, my reward for being able to move
is, naturally, taking advantage of someone else’s cakeshop. It might have even
been two…
May 2013
 |
Being personified in icing should be
on everyone's bucket list! |
I reach a landmark
birthday and indulge in much wonderful baking from others: fresh and hot
madeleines from St John Bread and Wine and a wonderful personalised birthday
cake.
I even manage to treat my poor feet, overworked all day for the past nine
months as well as put through over 500 miles of running, to a rejuvenating
pedicure. I take the opportunity to consider how lucky I am to be in a position
where I can still explore what career path will make me happy, and to have such
wonderful and supportive people around me.
Plans are developed to
extend the café’s training offer to include short-term work experience
placements for young people about to embark on hospitality apprenticeships. I
set about designing a training programme for these placements to include all
the key aspects of working in the café as well as experiencing a variety of
different shifts.
At the end of the
month, I learn my saddest, but most valuable lesson in the Hospitality industry
so far: you can trust a member of staff completely, pour your energy and what
you have learnt yourself into training them, supporting them, giving them
experience and responsibility that they wouldn’t otherwise enjoy at such an
early stage in their career, sing their praises, and they can still let you,
and themselves, down in the most heartbreaking of ways.
Irrevocably.
June 2013
I am back to working
as a one-woman band in the café, for the foreseeable future. It is around this
time that the Powers That Be decide that the café is not generating enough of a
return on its investment and opportunities for putting it to use as a
revenue-generating training facility need to be maximised.
My line manager leaves
the company. Suddenly staff begin ordering toast first thing in the morning
again, now that they are no longer banned from eating at their desk while they
check their emails.
Post-marathon, I am
keeping fit by repeatedly having to carry up to 36 pints of milk at a time from
ten minutes away. All well and good unless any or, as is often the case, all of the below apply:
a) it’s raining and windy – quite a
likely occurrence in London,
b) all the elevators between the café and the
supermarket are broken
or c) the milk starts leaking on the way back all over
the bread, sandwich fillings and me, causing a mini meltdown while I empty my
shopping bags of purchases to pour away the spillage and almost actually cry over spilt milk.
July 2013
Preparations are
underway for the next phase of café development and I work on advertising
opportunities to increase footfall and give the prospective trainees more
customers with whom to practise their skills. The menu is refreshed and packed
lunches grow in popularity despite questionable British summer weather. All
that frozen fruit finally gets put to use in smoothies and berry muffins. The
café gains a working glasswasher, a stock cupboard and a long-awaited second kitchen
worktop. I see in my one-year anniversary on a well deserved holiday.
And so, into Year Two...
Since my one year
anniversary in this role, I have thought a lot about the future. The café has
been my baby, brought up from birth in the most part by a single parent, and I
have learnt a lot, grumbled often and shed blood, sweat, tears and pounds
through my work. I am proud of what I have achieved, never satisfied with how
things are and at times frustrated in the lack of vision surrounding me at the
potential of what I do. I have been steadfast in my belief that giving
customers what they think they want is not always the right thing to do; I have
resolutely resisted pressure to stock energy drinks, burgers and high-sugar
chocolate cakes despite knowing how much the younger, seemingly more solvent
students want them. I have been truly touched by the colleagues that recognise
my hard work, the smiles I elicit from a regular customer when I have their
order ready before they ask, the opportunities I am given to help someone make
a healthier food choice. I know that I still have so much more to learn.
Getting on with the pressures of running the café on my own risks making me
blinkered to what can be done to improve the customer experience, how I can
innovate, how to give customers more of what they want without jeopardising
café values. Every now and then, as painful as it is, circumstances force me to
take a step back and consider the café in its own merits as if as a customer,
and it is hard not to take its shortcomings personally. And then I am reminded
of the magnitude of the task at hand. I may not take as much money as I’d like,
but I am solely responsible for opening, closing, running, stocking,
administering, buying, controlling, cleaning, regulating, presenting and
personalising that café, and it is a labour of love. Or madness.
Or both.
Where I go from here,
however, is bewildering. At some point it will be time for me to move on, but
in what direction, only time can tell.
Lunch today was Coq au Vin made by one of the chef tutors and I am looking forward to giving this a go myself, which according to the schedule is due on Tuesday. 
