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‘I can’t really let you cook anything, unless you have a food hygiene certificate tucked away somewhere that you’ve never mentioned,’ he explains. ‘You’re welcome to take the hairnet off and go and help Bronwyn, if you like.’
Although there are only two people in the café, a couple of workmen in hi-vis jackets obviously loading up on carbs and protein before starting their day, the atmosphere in here is already different. Bronwyn is busily attacking the tables with the new cleaning products and her energy seems to be permeating the place. I decide to follow her round, helping her to wipe down the tables, removing the old ketchup bottles and replacing them with the branded ones that we bought at the cash and carry.
‘Can we have a couple of those on our table, love?’ one of the workmen calls.
‘Of course you can, here you go.’ Normally, I’d tear someone off a strip for calling me ‘love’ like that, but in here it seems inoffensive, somehow.
‘Have you checked there isn’t a seal under the cap?’ Bronwyn asks. ‘The ones we buy at home always have a seal, and they’re buggers to get off.’
I check, and she’s right so, after sorting the workmen’s bottles out, I retrace my steps and remove the seals from all the other bottles. It’s a messy job, and my hands are soon sticky with ketchup.
‘There’s a sink in the corner at the back if you want to wash your hands,’ Bronwyn explains, and I scurry over to it just as a bell pings in the kitchen. Bronwyn clomps in and brings out two fully laden plates. After my experience with the bacon roll, I’m surprised by how generous the full English breakfast looks.
‘There you go, gents. Is there anything else I can get for you? No? Okay, enjoy.’ Rita could really do with taking customer service training from Bronwyn, I think to myself.
It’s fair to say that there is no morning rush. A steady trickle of customers comes and goes, and Bronwyn is chirpy and welcoming to them all.
‘How come you don’t go and take their orders at the table? Why do they have to come up to the counter to order?’ I ask her at one point.
‘It goes back to before I was here. As I understand it, when Fred first started making cuts, a few people left without paying, as a protest. So, he changed the system to make them come up to the counter to order, and we take their money up front. I don’t think people mind, to be honest, as long as they understand the system. It also means they can leave as soon as they’re finished, rather than waiting around to pay. Some people like that. We get the most aggro from people who want to pay by card because we only take cash.’
‘I’ve ordered a card machine, it should be here within a week,’ I tell her.
‘Oh, that’s fab! It will make such a difference with walk-in clients. The regulars, they know the system, but the walk-ins don’t half make a fuss, and some of them walk straight out again. Mind you, I’m not sure how Rita will react to it. She doesn’t like change.’
‘She’ll just have to adapt, won’t she?’
Our conversation is cut short by the arrival of an elderly gentleman. I say elderly, he’s probably mid-seventies. He has thick white hair and a copy of theMetronewspaper tucked under his arm.
‘This is Ron. He’s one of our regulars,’ Bronwyn explains. ‘Ron, this is Daisy. She’s the new owner.’
‘Hello, Daisy.’ His voice is strong, and he smiles. ‘You’ve got your work cut out here, I imagine.’
‘There’s a fair amount to do, yes,’ I reply. ‘But I want to try to turn things around if I can.’
‘Good girl. Would you do an old man a favour, though?’
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Don’t go all modern and trendy, like the places in town. I can’t bear them, with their unpronounceable coffees and hordes of young women twittering away like budgies while their babies scream the place down.’
Okay, not what I was expecting. As I’ve just met him, I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. He is a paying customer, after all, no matter how offensive and sexist his views.
‘Your usual, Ron?’ Bronwyn asks, probably to divert the conversation onto safer ground.
‘You’re an angel, Bronwyn,’ Ron replies, pulling a £5 note out of his wallet and handing it to her, before wandering off and settling himself at a table in the corner.
‘He comes in every morning at exactly the same time. Has a bacon roll and a cup of coffee while he reads the paper,’ Bronwyn tells me as she counts out his change.
As we move through the morning, various other elderly people come and go. I meet Agnes, who always sits at the table next to Ron’s, even though they never actually speak to each other, according to Bronwyn. She has a single poached egg on toast every day. Harold has an egg and bacon roll with a cup of tea. I watch, transfixed, as he adds a hefty dollop of brown sauce.
‘That’s got to be a weird combination, right?’ I say to Bronwyn. ‘Egg and brown sauce? Not sure it’s for me.’
‘I told you,’ she replies. ‘Taste buds obviously shot to pieces.’
* * *
By the time we close up at three o’clock, I’m exhausted. It’s not that it’s been busy, but I’m unused to being on my feet for such a long time and my back is aching. We’ve had a few comments about the changes, all positive, and I’m surprised how much I’ve enjoyed myself. I did have a conversation with Matt in one of the lulls about whether the new ingredients meant that we’d have to put the prices up, but he informed me that Fred had never lowered them even when he’d substituted cheaper ingredients, so he reckoned there should still be a healthy margin. I’ll have to do some analysis at some point to see if he’s right. We’ve also ordered a new fryer, which will apparently be delivered tomorrow. It wasn’t cheap, but there’s no point cutting corners with these things.
